


Ex Libris

by HematiteBadger



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: Case Fic, Endgame Duke/Nathan, Fairy Tales, Gen, M/M, Season 3, Trouble of the Week, canon pairings apply
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-04-25 02:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 74,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4942633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HematiteBadger/pseuds/HematiteBadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slay the monster, solve the riddle, save the princess. Fairy tales are straightforward except when they're not, and when a Trouble brings them to life in Haven, 'not' is the most likely outcome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the back half of Season 3, and essentially replaces Magic Hour 1 and 2 in the timeline.

There were worse places to have car trouble, Erin reflected. Sure, she was out in the middle of the forest, but there was plenty of room to pull over without hitting a tree or rolling down an embankment. She steered onto the shoulder as the engine coughed and gradually died.

It was probably the battery again, she thought as she popped the hood. This was the third time in as many months; there must be something wrong with the terminals. A look at the engine didn’t offer any immediate answers; there was nothing damaged or out of place that she could see. She muttered a few words that would have made her mother complain that she was learning all the wrong things at college.  
She looked up at the sun. It was getting late, but darkness was still a ways off. Erin grumbled lightly as she slammed the hood down. She pulled a red duffel bag out of the back seat and her phone off the dash. Making sure her car was well out of the way of the road, she shouldered the bag and started walking, dialing her phone as she went.

It was several rings before someone answered. “Hello?”

“Hey, Margo.”

“Erin, hi! I was out back, almost didn’t hear the phone. Is everything all right? Are you on your way?”

“Yeah, I’m almost there, but I had some car trouble. I had to pull over.”

Margo tsked. “It’s always something with that car of yours. Where are you? I’ll come get you.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Erin told her. “It’s not far through the woods; I can probably walk it faster than you can get the truck started and get here by the road. I’ve got my bag, and we can come out for the car in the morning.”

Margo made a skeptical sound. “Are you sure? It’s getting late. I don’t like the idea of you wandering around the forest in the dark.”

“I’m, like, ten minutes away,” Erin said. “I’ve got plenty of time before it starts getting dark.”

“If you’re sure,” Margo said, still sounding doubtful. “But keep your phone on. I’m going back outside, but I’ll take the phone with me. Call me if you need any help.”

“I will,” Erin promised. “See you in a few.”

Finding her way in the forest was one of the first things Margo had taught Erin when she was a kid. She knew about how far her car was from Margo’s cabin, and in what direction, and even if it was a little darker once she got in among the trees she still knew where she was going, and besides, Erin liked being out in the woods. Not enough to live out here, like Margo did, but enough to appreciate it when she came to visit. It was nice to wander through the undergrowth and feel like she was the only person in the world.

“Are you lost, my dear?”

Erin nearly jumped out of her skin at the voice. She looked around, trying to stop her heart from hammering, but there was nobody else in sight. She stood up a little straighter and started walking faster. She knew better than to talk to strangers in an isolated area, especially she couldn’t see, and she was pretty sure she didn’t want to talk to _anyone_ who called her ‘my dear.’

“Have I alarmed you?” the voice said. “I assure you, I meant no harm.” There was a rustle in the underbrush, and a wolf appeared between the trees. It was huge and dark-furred, and it flashed its teeth at Erin in a doggy smile. “I only find it curious that a young lady should be walking alone in the woods.”

Erin froze. Obviously there was no way that a wolf was talking to her, but that was where the sound was coming from. There must be someone else in the forest, someone she just couldn’t see who was out for a walk with a wolfy-looking dog. “Leave me alone,” she said, trying to sound annoyed but unconcerned as she went in a wide circle around the animal.

The dog turned to follow her, keeping pace with her but staying a couple feet away. No, it was definitely a wolf. “Oh, I can’t do that, not in good conscience.” And it was definitely talking, its mouth making shapes that she hadn’t thought a wolf’s could. “It’s not safe out here.”

Erin looked up at the sun, then down at the time display on her phone. She’d only been walking for a few minutes; this couldn’t be some exposure-induced hallucination. Had she walked into a poisonous plant or something? Was there a gas leak in the car that she was only now noticing had made her loopy? She put a hand out and touched a tree, pinching off a bit of bark and turning it over between her fingers. It felt real enough, and it smelled right. Everything seemed perfectly normal, except for the fact that a wolf was talking to her.

And _kept on_ talking to her. It had a male voice, rich and liquid. “I’m only concerned for your safety. Have you lost your way, to be out here alone?”

“No,” Erin said. She probably shouldn’t be talking to it, whether it was real or not, but it was hard to ignore. “I know where I’m going. And someone is expecting me,” she added, hoping that knowing she wouldn’t be alone for long would chase it off.  
On the contrary, the wolf perked up at this and trotted a little closer. “Is this a social call, then? To the lovely little old woman who lives in the clearing just ahead, no doubt.”

Erin stiffened. That was accurate, though no one who’d ever actually met her would describe Margo as a ‘lovely little old woman.’ The wolf seemed to notice her reaction. It circled around to her other side, trying to steer her in a new direction. “Follow me, my dear. I know a swifter way to get there.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Erin said, making her voice as sharp as she could. “Just leave me alone.”

The wolf’s ears and tail drooped. “I have started out by frightening you and ended in offending you,” it said, sounding regretful. “Forgive me, for neither was my intent. I will leave you be, then, but allow me to run ahead of you and clear the path. I couldn’t bear the thought of a young lady such as yourself coming to harm.” It bowed its head before springing into the undergrowth and disappearing through the trees as silently as it had come.

Erin had to stand still for a long while before she felt collected enough to keep walking. That had easily been the strangest and most unnerving experience of her life. She took a deep breath and started off again, faster this time. She wanted to put this behind her as quickly as possible.

It was only a few more minutes before she reached the dirt road that led to Margo’s cabin. She started to let out a sigh of relief as she climbed the porch steps, which was cut short when she realized the front door was hanging open.

_Nothing strange about that_ , she tried to tell herself. Margo had said that she was going to be working outside; she’d probably left the door open for Erin. It was a perfectly rational explanation, but Erin was no longer in a rational mood. She poked her head into the cabin cautiously. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, at least not that she could see from the door. “Hello?” she hazarded. “Margo?”

“Oh, there you are, dear,” came the response from deeper inside the cabin. “I’m in the bedroom. Come on back.” It was a high and creaky voice, an eerie parody of a frail old woman.

It sounded _nothing_ like Margo.

Heart in her throat and barely breathing, Erin steadied herself against the porch railing and backed down the steps, slow and silent. When she reached the ground she turned and ran until she was among the trees again. She pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed with shaking hands.

“911, what is your emergency?” It was faint, this far out and with so much interference with the trees, but still audible.

“Help me,” Erin choked out in a strangled whisper. “There’s someone in the cabin. I think they might have hurt my grandmother.”

*

“Always nice to start the morning out with a body,” Audrey said as she surveyed the cabin. She accepted the coffee cup Nathan held out to her gratefully.

“Could be worse,” Nathan said. “At least it’s not a human one for once.” He lifted the caution tape to let her step into the cabin. “Erin Scarborough was coming out to visit Margo Andrews for the weekend. When she got here the front door was wide open and there were strange voices coming from the back of the house with no sign of Margo, so she called the police.” Nathan gestured down the hall, steering Audrey towards the open bedroom door. “Margo was out back; she came around to the front and found Erin a few minutes later and decided to take care of the situation herself. Police response time isn’t great this far out.”

What was left of the wolf was on the floor, bloodstained and tangled in a bedsheet. “Margo says it was in the bed when she came in,” Nathan continued. “It jumped at her, and she gave it both barrels.” He indicated the shotgun lying on the floor a few feet from the animal.

Audrey crouched to take a closer look at the wolf’s remains. There didn’t seem to be anything unusual about them aside from the damage the shotgun blast had done. “Sounds like a basic animal attack,” she said. She straightened and looked around at the rest of the room. Several drawers were open, and clothes were hanging from some of them like they’d been rifled through. There was another pile of clothes in front of the open closet, looking like they’d been dragged from their hangers and trampled. “That looks _less_ like an animal attack.”

“The front door was forced open,” Nathan told her. “So was this one.” He drew her attention to the outside of the bedroom door. There were fresh scratches like claw marks in the wood around the knob, and a spot below it where it looked like the wood had dented and splintered. “Looks like someone tried the knob, then kicked the door in instead.”

Audrey turned the knob experimentally. It moved freely, and when she closed the door it opened again easily. “You wouldn’t _have_ to force this door open.” She gave Nathan a speculative look, starting to guess at where his mind was going. “Assuming you had hands, of course.”

“Erin told me she met a wolf in the woods on her way out here,” Nathan said, dropping his already quiet voice even lower. “She swears it was talking to her. Margo said the same thing, that this one spoke before it attacked her.”

“Talking animals. Because that’s the one thing we didn’t have yet.” Audrey took a long drink of her coffee. So it was going to be one of _those_ days. “Is it Margo and Erin specifically? Do they know if anyone in their family was Troubled?”

“Margo was Erin’s grandfather’s second wife,” Nathan told her. “They’re not related by blood. And they both say they heard the wolf, so it’s not likely to be either of them.”

“So much for the easy answer,” Audrey said, unsurprised.

“Wouldn’t have explained the door,” Nathan pointed out.

Audrey conceded that with a nod. “What are we thinking? Something that’s giving animals human voices, and possibly human-level intelligence?”

“Or someone that’s turning people into intelligent animals,” Nathan suggested. “We’ve already seen the opposite. Wouldn’t hurt to talk to Margo again, see if the wolf’s voice sounded like anyone she knows. And keep an eye on the missing persons reports for the next couple days.”

“And check Animal Control’s records for any strange reports,” Audrey added. “Whether this wolf started as an animal or a person, it’s probably not the only one that’s been affected by whatever’s going on.”

“Unless it _was_ a person, and he was turning himself into an animal.” Nathan sounded thoughtful. “In which case the problem has already been solved.”

“No.” Audrey shook her head firmly. “That’s not what happened here.”

Nathan raised an eyebrow. “You sound pretty sure of that.”

“I am.” Audrey responded to his questioning look with a wry smile. “When has it _ever_ been that simple for us?”

*

One of the worst things about having a legitimate job was keeping to normal business hours, which in the restaurant business frequently involved early mornings. Still, Duke had to admit that the Grey Gull was a nice place to be this early. The light was beautiful, the air smelled like the ocean, and the only sound was the wind through the trees. It was almost like being alone at sea again. Duke stood behind the bar and took a long moment to enjoy the peace of it all, and then the screaming started.

It was a high, frantic sound, coming from somewhere in the trees just south of the building. Duke’s heart stopped. _Audrey?_ No, her car had already been gone when he’d gotten in. And it didn’t sound like a woman screaming. It sounded like it might be a kid, actually. _Crap_. Duke tucked the gun from under the bar into his waistband and headed out the door at a run.

The scream trailed off into a shriek as Duke neared the treeline, turning into sharp bursts of sound that he eventually recognized as words. “Get me out, get me out! Help! She’s coming!”

Movement in the trees caught Duke’s eye. There was something hanging from a branch, jerking like a fish on a line. “Some friends _you_ are!” the voice was yelling now. “Running off and abandoning me!”

It was a squirrel. It was a squirrel, tangled in a clump of string that had probably been part of a bird’s nest and was now wedged into the tree’s bark, and it was unmistakably the one doing the yelling. “Are you _freaking kidding me_ ,” Duke growled.

His voice caught the squirrel’s attention. “Get me down!” it yelled again. “There’s not much time!”

Without thinking, Duke got a hand under the dangling squirrel to support it, and then he just stared at it for a while. There was really no point in pretending that this wasn’t happening; he’d been in Haven far too long for that. But still. Talking squirrel. Even in Haven, you were allowed to be baffled by a talking squirrel.

“What are you waiting for!” the squirrel squawked. “There’s a hawk; can’t you hear her?”

“Okay, okay! Just hang on a second, will you?” Duke studied the string that had wrapped itself around one of the squirrel’s forelegs. It was tight enough that he couldn’t just untwist it, not with one hand keeping the squirrel from flopping around and losing its mind even further. “Let me just see if I can...” He dug his nails in under the bark and focused on freeing the string from the tree. “Got it,” he said, catching the squirrel and cupping it to his chest. He could get it loose from the string later.

The squirrel, which had gone quieter now that Duke was holding it, suddenly screamed again. “What are you—” he started, and then he saw the hawk.

She was perched at about his eye level, close enough for him to reach out and grab her, her entire body tensed as if it was ready to pounce like a cat. Duke had never paid much attention to the specifics of the local wildlife, and he had lived his life in the assumption that he was never going to have to know how to fend off an angry bird of prey. _We live and learn, don’t we?_ “Something I can do for you?” he asked, only a hint of irony in his voice.

“You can stop interfering in matters that are none of your concern,” the hawk said in a sharp and screeching voice, casually scratching her chest with a talon that could probably cost Duke an eye and half his nose in a single swipe.

Well, now she was just _annoying_ him. Duke recognized an intimidation technique when he saw one. He was used to backing down when it was necessary, when there was a fight he was unlikely to win or one that just wasn’t worth it, and it would probably be smart to consider a fight with someone who brought her own knives to be one of those, but she was trying to stare him down on _his_ property and he wasn’t about to stand for that. “I’m _making_ it my concern,” he told her.

She jutted her head forward and tilted it to the side, studying him. “Why? Why would the life of one squirrel ever matter to you?”

It wasn’t a question Duke knew how to answer. The most accurate answer – _it doesn’t, really, but now I’m kind of committed, and it seems weird to just leave a talking squirrel to get eaten_ – didn’t seem like it would satisfy anyone. Finally, he shrugged. “Because this one asked me for help.”

“So you would snatch a meal from my mouth simply because you were _asked_?” The hawk sounded insulted now, almost plaintive. “For the sake of _asking_ , one squirrel becomes more valuable than my hunger?”

Duke spread one hand in a conciliatory gesture, pinning the squirrel to his chest with the other. It was squirming and scratching at him, trying to escape even though there was nowhere for it to go. “You should have asked me first.”

The hawk stared at him for a moment before letting out a scratchy hiccupping sound that Duke eventually realized was laughter. “Perhaps next time I will.” She stretched upwards and flapped her wings once or twice, preparing to take flight. “I can see that it will cost me less trouble to find a creature that hasn’t asked for your protection than to take this one from you. For today, at least, I’ll find my prey elsewhere.”

Duke watched her fly away, staring after her until she disappeared above the trees. He was suddenly very worried that this _wasn’t_ the weirdest thing that was going to happen to him today.

The squirrel kicked him in the chest, reminding him of how true this was. “Getting rid of her won’t help if you suffocate me,” it said, rather more rudely than Duke thought was warranted.

“Right. Sorry.” Duke relaxed his grip, and the squirrel was calm enough now to sit in his hand and wait while he freed the rest of the string from the tree. “Guess I’d better get you inside, get the rest of this off you.”

“ _Inside_?” the squirrel repeated, intrigued. “I’ve never been in an inside before. Well, an attic, once, but there were raccoons.”  
“Don’t get used to it,” Duke said. That was the last thing he needed, a health code citation for talking vermin.

It was with the health code in mind that Duke spread a dishtowel out on the bar before setting the squirrel on it. “Just stay there and don’t touch the wood, all right?”

The squirrel seemed content to do so, sitting back on its haunches and looking around the room. “It’s big in here. All this space.”

Duke poked his head up from under the bar, where he knew there was a pair of scissors somewhere. “You live in a forest. How is this ‘big’?”

“Of _course_ the forest is big,” the squirrel said, as if Duke was being deliberately obtuse. “It’s the whole world. It has to be big because it has everything in it. It’s not a _place_. A place is somewhere like the hollow log with the hole in the top, or the big pointy rock, or the two trees that got tangled together. _This_ is a big place.”

“When you put it that way, I guess.” Duke was tempted to ask what it thought the town was, if the forest was the entire world, but he wasn’t sure how much of a cultural studies lesson he could deal with right now. Now that the situation was less immediately dire, the... well, he supposed he should call it the ‘reality’ of the situation, even if he was still not convinced that it was real, was starting to sink in. Even after everything he’d seen since he came back to Haven, there was something _inherently_ unreal about talking animals. And it wasn’t like this would be the first conversation he’d ever had with something that wasn’t actually talking. He’d occasionally had conversations with things that weren’t even _there_ , although this time the tiny nail marks in his hand were evidence enough for the squirrel’s existence.  
There were scissors in the little nook under the cash register, along with what looked like the contents of someone’s junk drawer, including a pair of dice. Duke grabbed one of them along with the scissors, making a mental note to have a word with the staff about proper organization. “I need you to do something for me.”

The squirrel folded its forelegs in a worryingly human gesture of annoyance. “Something more important than getting this crap off my leg?”

“Just humor me, okay? You can count, right?”

“I can count to _eight_ ,” the squirrel said, sounding smug as it held out its forepaws and spread the toes. “That’s _way_ more than most squirrels can. You’re lucky you found me, if you need _counting_.”

“I guess I am,” Duke said, trying to keep a straight face. He held up the die. “Watch this.” He closed his eyes, gave the die a little shake, and dropped it on the bar, listening until it stopped clattering. “How many dots are on top?”

“ _Tch_. That’s _easy_. Three. _Anyone_ can count to _three_.”

Duke opened his eyes. Three pips stared up at him from the die, and two very irritated eyes stared up at him from the squirrel, who quite clearly thought its time was being wasted. Okay, so it was really talking. He could work with that. Probably. “Thank you,” he said. He held up the scissors. “Now hold still.”

The squirrel sat up straighter, holding out its foreleg so Duke could reach the string. There were a handful of strands reaching from its leg to the mass that had been stuck to the tree; it had evidently stepped down right in the middle of the tangle. Duke cut them as close to the fur as possible and then went to work on the little snarls. “You have a name?” he asked, because now that he was sure he was having a conversation with a squirrel he felt like he should at least make the effort to be polite.

“ _Everything_ has a name.” By its tone, Duke guessed that the squirrel was starting to think he wasn’t very smart. “It’s—” a burst of high-pitched chittering. “Bust mostly everyone just calls me—” a shorter burst.

Duke winced at the sound. “Something I can pronounce, maybe?”

“It’s not a difficult name,” the squirrel retorted, and now it sounded _sure_ that Duke wasn’t very smart. “Although,” it added, squinting at his mouth, “I guess you _do_ have the wrong kind of teeth.”

“Yes, I’m sure that’s the problem.” Duke slid the smallest blade of his pocketknife under a knot that refused to be untied any other way. “Does it, I don’t know, translate or something?”

“I guess. The way you make words, it would be something like ‘He Leaves No Tracks In The Snowfall.’ ‘Snowfall’ for short. But it sounds a lot better the way I said it the first time. More poetic.”

Squirrel poetry. Another thing Duke wasn’t going to ask about, although he did note the ‘he’ in the name. “I can handle ‘Snowfall,’” he said. “I’m Duke.”

“‘Duke’?” Snowfall repeated. “That’s all? Humans have so many words, and so many sounds you can make, and you still have short names like that? No wonder you thought my name was hard.”

“That and the wrong teeth,” Duke said ironically. “Which doesn’t seem to be causing you any problems in talking to _me_.”

“No.” Snowfall scratched his head with his free paw, brow furrowed. “That’s new, I think. I don’t _think_ I’ve ever spoken in human before. Is that weird?”

“You’re only wondering that _now_?”

“I had other things on my mind,” Snowfall retorted. “All I was thinking about was getting away from that hawk. I was in trouble, and suddenly I was calling for help and you could understand it. I don’t know how.”

“I might have an idea.” It would be tempting fate way too much to say that this was the weirdest Trouble Duke had run into so far. But it was definitely up there. “Did you see anyone else out in the forest? Anyone human, I mean.”

“Nobody. Well, not that I saw, anyway, and you aren’t very good at hiding yourselves.”

So much for making it easy. “Anything else weird happened to you over the last couple days?”

“No?” Snowfall hazarded. “I don’t think so.”

“You sure about that?” Duke worked the last bit of string off Snowfall’s leg. “There you go. Good as new.”

“I don’t know anything,” Snowfall insisted, dropping down on all fours and testing his leg. “I’d tell you if I did. I’d _have_ to tell you if I did.”

“Seriously? Is there some kind of squirrel honor code for these things?”

“No...” Snowfall said slowly, sounding uncomfortable. “This is... a new thing. It came along with the human words, I think. I just know that you saved my life, and now I...” he wrinkled his nose, pronouncing the word with distaste, “ _owe_ you. Squirrels don’t have that. I don’t like it.”

“ _Nobody_ likes that feeling.”

“Well, I’m not supposed to have it!” Snowfall stomped one tiny foot. “Squirrels don’t ‘owe’ people things. I mean, I’m glad you saved me and you seem like a nice human, but I shouldn’t have to _think_ about that! I just want to be a normal squirrel with normal squirrel thoughts. I’m _good_ at normal squirrel thoughts.”

The sudden wash of sympathy Duke felt was as strange as anything else that had happened to him today. He got that. He and half the population of this town knew what ‘I just want to be normal again’ felt like. That the person – for a broad value of ‘person,’ granted – expressing it this time was _part_ of the abnormality didn’t seem to matter. “You and me both.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I might be able to help. I know some people who’re pretty good a figuring out how to make things normal again. Or as close as we can ever get here. You’re going to have to come with me to get them, though, because no _way_ are they ever going to believe me this time.”


	2. Into the Woods

The stack of forms on Nathan’s desk was thick and disorganized, battered citizen complaints mixed in with the only slightly less battered incident reports from Animal Control. Someone’s dog going after someone else’s chickens. Raccoons in garbage cans. An unconfirmed sighting of a jaguar out by the farms. Nathan set that last one aside, just in case, but without much hope that it would pan out. He gave the papers a flick with his thumb, listening to the irregular rippling sound as the different sizes and weights of paper snapped back against each other. As far as he could tell, there was nothing in these reports that hinted at animals acting with near-human intelligence. Except maybe the raccoons, but that was _always_ the case with raccoons. He hoped Audrey was having better luck at the Herald.

A familiar voice coming down the hallway broke his train of thought. “I just need to talk to Nathan for a minute; nobody has to know we were here. I was here,” Duke sounded like he was correcting himself. His voice dropped. “This is... _unofficial_ official business, you get me?”

“I understand,” came a second voice. Oh, great. Duke was harassing Stan. “But this is a _government building_. You can’t bring that in here! There are very strict policies I have to follow!”

Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose. It was impossible for him to have a headache, but he could feel one coming on anyway. He went to the door and opened it reluctantly. “What now?”

“I told him not to come back here,” Stan said. He was still half blocking the hall, although he’d turned to face Nathan.  
Duke shouldered past him, no longer paying him any attention now that Nathan was there. He was clutching something to his chest. “Hey,” he said, ignoring Stan’s protests. “You got a minute?”

It was his serious voice, the one he only broke out when they had an actual problem. Nathan gave him a questioning look, and Duke directed his eyes down towards the lump of grey-brown fur he was carrying, which was beginning to squirm. Nathan was starting to guess where this was going. “It’s okay, Stan,” he said. “Let him in; I’ll handle it.”

“Okay, Boss.” Stan still sounded doubtful. “But you’re _really_ not supposed to bring loose animals in here.”

Nathan practically shoved Duke into his office, closing the door after them. “Well?”

“Audrey’s not here?” Duke asked with forced casualness.

“She’s working,” Nathan said shortly. “Why do you need her? And what the hell are you carrying?”

“It’s a squirrel.” Duke said it quickly, as if he could stop Nathan from questioning it if he could just get the words out. He held up his free hand. “Nathan, listen to me. I swear I am _completely_ sober. But this squirrel...” His hand went to his head, and he gave Nathan a look that clearly and eloquently said, _I know exactly what I sound like right now_. “This squirrel is talking.”

“This squirrel is _suffocating_ , is what he’s doing!” A furry paw emerged from behind Duke’s arm, followed by an angry-looking head. The squirrel wormed his way out of Duke’s grip and clambered up to his shoulder, where he began smoothing his fur. “You practically _crushed_ me!”

“If you’d just held still I wouldn’t have had to,” Duke retorted. “I could have gotten you back here without anyone noticing.”

“Why can’t anyone notice me? _You_ told me the people here could help me.”

“I meant _him_ ,” Duke said, tilting his head in Nathan’s direction. “Not the rest of them. Nathan’s different. This is Nathan, by the way,” he added as an afterthought, making introductory gestures between them. “Nathan, this is Snowfall.”

The squirrel gave him a little wave. “Hi.”

For the first time that Nathan could remember, Duke calling him ‘different’ sounded like a compliment. It was almost as unexpected as the talking squirrel. Almost. “Morning.” He turned his attention back to Duke. “You want to tell me what’s going on here?”

“I don’t know,” Snowfall lamented. “He said _you_ would.”

“I said you might be able to figure it out,” Duke corrected. “Well, you and Audrey. And I figured she’d be less likely to lock me up the second I said I was talking to a squirrel.”

“Under most circumstances she probably would be,” Nathan agreed. He’d been moving in as they spoke, and now he was practically nose-to-nose with the squirrel. There was, as far as he could tell, nothing unusual about Snowfall, save that he was studying Nathan with the same intensity that Nathan was studying him. “But he’s not the first animal someone’s heard talking recently. Where did you find him?”

“I was about two jumps morningward from the hard black river.”

“The stand of trees out by the Gull’s deck, by the highway,” Duke clarified in Nathan’s ear. His voice was low, possibly out of a desire not to interrupt but more likely because he, unlike Nathan, was aware of how close the two of them currently were. For a moment Nathan had forgotten that Snowfall was on Duke’s shoulder, and being as close as he was to one meant that he was also well inside the other’s personal space. Duke, however, seemed unfazed by this. “I also had a little conversation with a hawk, if that matters.”

Nathan straightened and took a step back. If Duke wasn’t going to react, then neither was he. “Not anywhere near the other incident, then.” He sat down at his desk, gesturing Duke to follow him. “Have a seat,” he told Snowfall, tapping the desk’s surface as he flipped to a blank page in his notepad.

Snowfall took a little hop down Duke’s arm to the desk and sat down on his haunches among the Animal Control documents, folding his forepaws and looking up at Nathan expectantly. Freed of his duties as transportation, Duke flopped onto the office couch. “Snowfall, is it?” Nathan asked.

“Close enough,” the squirrel said with a sigh. Nathan shot Duke a questioning look. Duke shook his head, a _don’t ask_ expression on his face.

“Okay,” Nathan said, not asking. “Can you tell me what happened to you?”

“Lots of things happened to me. It’s been a very busy day.”

Nathan couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic, or if he was just simpleminded. “Start at the beginning, then,” he said evenly.

“The beginning,” Snowfall repeated, tilting his head up and tapping his paws together thoughtfully. “Things started to go strange this morning, I guess. Or maybe last night, but last night was _so_ long ago. You can’t expect me to remember everything going back that far, right?”

“Starting with this morning will be fine,” Nathan said. ‘Simpleminded’ was beginning to look more likely. “Is that when you started talking?” He paused. This was Haven, after all. There was always a chance... “That _is_ the strange part, right? You don’t normally talk, do you?”

“Of _course_ I talk,” Snowfall said, sounding exasperated. Duke smothered a laugh. “Just not this way. Not in human words. I wasn’t even sure if humans _had_ words. I mean, I used to listen sometimes when you were out in the woods, but all you do is chatter to each other. It never _meant_ anything before.”

“Fair enough. Is this morning when it started meaning something?”

“I guess.”

“Okay. Then tell me about this morning.”

“I woke up in a hollow in the beech tree by the three round stones. I put my fur in order and I climbed up the tree to see where I was. There were some seeds that someone forgot in another hollow further up the tree, and I ate those.”

Nathan raised an eyebrow and made a note on his pad. “Anything unusual about that?”

Duke snorted. “You think he ate some magic beans?”

“Ignore him,” Nathan said automatically.

“They were _seeds_ ,” Snowfall corrected sharply. “I know the difference. And there’s nothing strange about finding seeds that someone forgot. Folks lose food all the time, or they turn into food and don’t need it anymore. Your cache only belongs to you if someone else doesn’t find it first. That’s the rule.”

“Wasn’t trying to accuse you of anything. You ate the seeds, and then what did you do?”

“Same thing everybody does when they’re not hungry or tired. I climbed a tree, and then I got out on a branch and jumped to the next one. Then I climbed that one until I got bored, and then I jumped down and ran on the ground for a while. There were some other squirrels running, too.” Snowfall took a look back at Duke and furrowed his brow. “You’d say... Notch In His Ear and She Sees The Farthest, I guess. We chased each other up and down some trees for a while. We were having a good time, but then the thing in the tree grabbed me.”

Nathan stopped writing. “‘The thing in the tree’?” he repeated.

“The tangly thing on the branch. It caught my foot and I tripped and fell off the branch, but the thing held me so I was stuck hanging in the air.”

At a loss, Nathan turned his attention to Duke. “Care to translate?”

“He got tangled up in some string.”

“ _String_ ,” Snowfall hissed, teeth bared. “I do _not_ like string.” Nathan tried not to smile. “I probably could have gotten free,” Snowfall continued. “Eventually, anyway. But there was a hawk. I guess she saw that I couldn’t move, so she tried to dive for me. Notch and Sees-Far ran off and left me,” he added, folding his forelegs indignantly. “I mean, I _guess_ I can’t blame them, but I don’t like that they did that. It wasn’t _nice_. And that’s another human thought,” he said over his shoulder to Duke. “I never cared about _nice_ before.”

“To be fair, neither do about half the humans I meet,” Duke said.

“Can we stay on topic?” Nathan cut in. “So you were caught up in the string and a hawk was after you. What happened next?”

“I screamed. And I guess it was a human scream, because Duke came to save me. He chased the hawk away and freed me from the tree. Then he took me to an inside and took the string away.”

Nathan couldn’t hide his amusement as he raised an eyebrow at Duke. “Seriously?”

“I heard screaming and I investigated,” Duke said, sounding defensive. “That’s all. And I didn’t ‘chase’ anyone. I just… talked her into leaving.”

“I’m sure you were very persuasive.”

“Okay, you’re taking a witness statement from a _squirrel_ ,” Duke retorted. “Which, by the way, may be the funniest thing I have ever seen. I just want that on the record. You have no room to make fun of me for _anything_ right now.”  
Nathan had to admit that that was fair. Well, he had to admit it to himself, but he wasn’t going to give Duke the satisfaction of saying it out loud. Instead, he said, “I’m just trying to get the whole story. Snowfall, can you think of anything else that might have happened? Anything odd or unusual, no matter how small it seemed at the time?”

“ _No_. There was nothing else, I keep saying. I don’t know what happened, I just know that I’m different now.” He put his paw on Nathan’s hand and looked up at him with wide, sad eyes. “I just want everything back the way it was. Duke said you could help. Will you fix me? Please?”

This display of helplessness was the most adorable and pathetic thing Nathan had ever seen. He raised his free hand to his forehead. “Okay, I can see why you had to help him,” he said to Duke.

“It’s like being attacked by a Disney character,” Duke agreed with a wry look.

Snowfall clasped his paws. “Does that mean you’ll help me?”

Nathan sighed. “I was already helping. I just didn’t know who.”

“So what’s our next step?” Duke asked.

Nathan raised an eyebrow at that ‘our’; he was still not thrilled at how quick Duke was to declare himself part of the team lately. “Depends on what Audrey finds out at the Herald.”

“Is Audrey another different person?” Snowfall flicked his tail in what looked like nervousness under the questioning looks from both men. “You said I could talk to Nathan because he’s different,” he continued at Duke. “Is Audrey different, too?”

“To put it mildly,” Duke said. “Yes, you can talk to Audrey.”

“Who can talk to Audrey?”

Her voice came into the room moments before she did. The room brightened, or so it seemed to Nathan, as if the warmth from her could reach him from several feet away. Duke sat up a little straighter. “Duke may have found us a lead,” Nathan said, gesturing to Snowfall.

Audrey took a step back in surprise. “Okay, then,” she said. A chuckle at Duke. “And Stan let you back here with a wild animal?”

“Eventually,” Duke said, waving the question away. 

“Apparently the wolf wasn’t an isolated incident,” Nathan explained. “Snowfall was affected by the same thing. He hasn’t been able to tell us much, but it’s a start.”

“I told you everything I can,” Snowfall said, insulted. “I’m _trying_.”

“Didn’t say you weren’t.”

Even Audrey couldn’t remain entirely unflappable when confronted with a talking squirrel. She shook her head, blinking sharply, and her breath came out in a surprised little laugh. _Seriously_? she mouthed at Nathan over the squirrel’s head. He spread his hands helplessly. Audrey took a deep breath and dove into the weirdness, as she always did. “Hi there,” she said gently, bending down until she was level with Snowfall. “What’s your name?”

Snowfall didn’t react to her. Thinking that he was scared, given Duke’s earlier admonition about not attracting attention, Nathan gave him a little nudge. “It’s okay,” he said. “This is Audrey. You can talk to her.”

“Talk to _who_?” Snowfall cast a wild eye around the room. “You and Duke are the only humans in here.”

_Oh boy_. Nathan gave Duke a questioning look, but the other man shrugged, just as confused as he was. Audrey furrowed her brow. “I’m right here,” she said, louder this time, waving her hand.

Nathan put a hand to his forehead. “You don’t see a woman standing on the other side of the desk?”

From the way Snowfall turned in a full circle, searching for something but not finding it, it seemed clear that he didn’t. “Is this some kind of human joke?”

“Right here,” Duke said. He’d risen off the couch and was standing next to Audrey, one hand on her shoulder. “You don’t see the woman standing next to me? Blonde? Cute? About this tall?”

“There’s nobody there, I swear. Just you.”

Nathan raised a questioning eyebrow at Audrey. “But you can see the squirrel, right? And hear him?”

“As weird as it feels to say it, yes.” She paused. “You two can both hear me, right? There’s nothing unusual about me?”

“No more so than normal,” Duke said. “I’m just trying to be clear,” he added in response to Nathan’s glare.

“You’re not whatever’s strange about this,” Nathan assured her. He studied Snowfall, who was looking increasingly scared and confused. “You can see him, you can hear him...” He made a thoughtful sound. “Can you _touch_ him?”

“I don’t think I _want_ your imaginary friend to touch me,” Snowfall said.

“Can you just trust me?” When Snowfall made a grudging grumble, Nathan looked back up at Audrey. “We need to know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

The concern on Audrey’s face was deepening, but she reached out and gave Snowfall a quick pat on the head. His ears flattened under the weight of her touch, his head dipping and then rising when she took her hand away. “Did you feel that?” Nathan asked.

“Feel what?” Snowfall asked, at the same time that Audrey said, “Just fur. Like petting a really small dog.”

Duke and Nathan exchanged glances. “This is gonna be a fun one,” Duke said.

“Okay,” Nathan said. “So whatever this is, it only works one way. You can interact with him, but he can’t interact with you.” This had to mean something for the nature of the Trouble they were trying to find, but what he couldn’t imagine.

“Guess you’re stuck translating for me until we figure this out,” Audrey said. “Can you ask him when this started?”

Nathan started to recap everything that he and Duke had already gone over with Snowfall, but the squirrel interrupted him. “I don’t like this,” he said quietly. He was crouched low on the desk now, making himself as small as possible. “Talking to humans is already strange enough. I don’t want to talk to humans who aren’t there. I told you everything I can; if you can’t fix me can I just go back to the forest?”

Another look passed between Duke and Nathan. Duke shrugged. “I have to go back to the Gull anyway. I can take him with me.”

“We might need more information from him.”

“I won’t go far,” Snowfall insisted. “I still owe Duke something, I think. I can find you again if you need me. But I don’t want to be inside anymore.”

“You’re probably not going to get anything more out of him,” Duke said. “Especially if he’s freaked out.”

If nothing else, Nathan had to admit that Duke was probably an expert on recognizing when someone had reached their limit on how much they would or could cooperate with the police. “Okay,” he conceded. “Just keep in touch if anything else happens.”

Duke held his palm out to Snowfall, letting the squirrel clamber up his hand and rest in the crook of his arm. “You think you can hold still this time?”

“You think you can not crush me this time?”

“I swear to God,” Duke muttered. He quirked an eyebrow at Nathan and let out a laugh. “Guess it’s a good thing I ran into you first, after all. You know you’ve hit rock bottom when the talking animal thinks _you’re_ the crazy one.”

*

Audrey took a long drink. She was already on her third coffee of the morning, and it was looking like she’d end up going through several more before lunch. “So did Duke and his little friend offer any insight?”

“Not a lot.”

Audrey could feel her eyes widening with every sentence as Nathan filled her in on what Duke and the squirrel had said before she got there. “So at least we know the wolf wasn’t an isolated incident,” she said when he was finished.

“That’s about all we know. There’s nothing promising from Animal Control. Did Vince and Dave have anything useful to add?”

Audrey shook her head. “They don’t have any official records of people turning into animals or affecting animal behavior.”

“‘Official’ records,” Nathan repeated. His voice had the same skepticism Audrey’s had had when Vince had said that to her.

“All they can find is rumors and folklore,” she said. “Nothing with names and dates that might actually be something we can trace. It’s all ‘somebody heard that somebody saw their neighbor turn into a black cat, and now she’s on trial for witchcraft.’ I mean, it’s possible that one of those stories is actually true, but...”

“Well, we can at least rule out the ‘people turning into animals,’ option,” Nathan said. “Or if we can’t, we’ve narrowed the pool of suspects down to really good actors. That was a squirrel trying to think like a human and not being very good at it, not the other way around.”

“So it’s someone or something making animals talk,” Audrey said.

“And they can’t see or hear you,” Nathan added. “Which doesn’t make any sense.”

“Really?” Audrey said dryly. “That’s the only thing that doesn’t make sense here?”

Nathan didn’t rise to her sarcasm. “It’s got to be something to do with your immunity to the Troubles,” he continued. “It’s like the opposite of the ghosts, where you were the only person in town who couldn’t interact with them. You’re a ghost to these animals.”

It was an interesting and apt comparison. “We still can’t work out _why_ , though,” she ruminated.

“No,” Nathan agreed. “And that might be the key to this whole thing.” He pursed his lips. “You couldn’t see the ghosts because a Trouble created them,” he said. “And it’s got to be a Trouble making the animals talk.”

“So why do you think I can hear them?,” Audrey said. “If I can’t interact with this Trouble you’d think I’d only see the animal behind it.”

Nathan nodded his agreement. “It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “It still feels connected, but I don’t know how.”

The silence stretched between them, full of thought but empty of solutions. “Where do we go from here?” Audrey finally asked.

“Aside from bringing in all the local wildlife we can find for questioning?” Nathan offered.

“Yes, aside from that,” Audrey said with a laugh.

“I don’t know,” Nathan admitted. “I can ask Jordan to put out the word, see if anyone knows of someone with a Trouble that might be related.”

Audrey covered a wince at Jordan’s name. “You think you can trust her information?”

Nathan eyed her doubtfully. “At least as much as you can trust Vince and Dave’s,” he pointed out.

It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, but Audrey couldn’t argue with it. “And aside from that?”

Nathan sighed. “As much as I hate to say it, I think this is the part where we have to wait for the clues to come to us.”

*

“Nothing?” Nathan asked.

“Nothing,” Jordan echoed. She leaned back against the railing of the café’s porch. They were tucked in the corner behind the kitchen, far enough from any of the tables that they were unlikely to be overheard. “The Guard doesn’t have any knowledge of a person – or a family – with a Trouble that makes animals talk. This is something new.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Which is kind of strange, when you think about it.”

Nathan furrowed his brow. “Strange how?”

“Well, you said that when you were dealing with that golem, Vince was talking about the possibility that a lot of folklore was based on the Troubles. You’d think that, with how common stories about animals talking to people are, it would have come up at some point.” A dry laugh. “Of course, talking to animals would be _useful_ , wouldn’t it? And God forbid there be a Trouble that helps someone more than it harms them.”

Recognizing the hurt in her voice, Nathan leaned on the railing beside her and rested a hand on her arm, just above where her glove ended. She gave him an appreciative smile. “I don’t know,” Nathan said. He indicated a pair of birds squabbling in a nearby tree. “Can you imagine the kind of language they’d be using if they spoke English? Nobody wants to hear that.”

“Good point,” Jordan said with a grin. She watched the birds for a moment. “So why _aren’t_ they speaking English?” she finally asked.

Nathan shrugged. “We don’t have enough information to know why the animals that are being affected were targeted. Both reports came from out in the woods, though, one of them by a pretty remote cabin and the other out behind the Grey Gull. Nothing from anywhere more urban. It could be something that’s affecting the areas outside of town first.”

She gave him a sideways look. “You sound like you’ve been doing your own research.”

“I may have attempted to start a conversation with a neighbor’s dog on my way here,” Nathan confessed sheepishly. “She wasn’t very forthcoming.”

That got him a bright laugh. “And nobody found that suspicious?”

Nathan made a noncommittal sound. No need to admit that everyone in his neighborhood had long ago gotten accustomed to his habit of talking to any friendly dog he came across.

“Okay, so you’re not going to give up your day job and become a dog whisperer any time soon,” Jordan said, still grinning at him. “What are you going to do next?”

“Actually...” Nathan trailed off, lost in thought as something that had been brewing in the back of his mind bubbled up. “I told Audrey we should start bringing in other wild animals for questioning. I was joking at the time, but it’s actually not a bad idea.”

“That just makes me wonder what you _would_ consider a bad idea,” Jordan said. “What, are you going to put signs up on trees? ‘If you can read this and are a bear, please contact the Haven Police Department’?”

“More like a hunting party,” Nathan said. “Or maybe bird-watching would be a better description. Find some people who’re willing to just go out into the woods and listen, see if they hear anything. And if they can start a conversation, they might find someone who knows something. Just because the squirrel didn’t see anything doesn’t mean that nobody else did.”

Jordan nodded slowly, looking off into the distance. “I can do that,” she said after a moment. “And I know some other people who’d be good for it. Let me ask around, see who I can pull together.”

“That’s great, thanks,” Nathan said. “I’ve got a couple officers who fit the bill and know about the Troubles; I can send one of them along with you.”

Jordan shifted her weight away from him, just enough for him to notice. “Nathan...” she said slowly, sounding almost disappointed that she had to explain this. “My people... they barely tolerate you. They’re not going to stand for having another cop butting in on Troubled business.”

“Troubled business is the entire town’s business,” Nathan pointed out. “If there are other people willing to help, what’s the logic in refusing to let them?”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Jordan snapped. She sighed, gave Nathan a patient and gentle look. “It’s not how most of the Guard thinks,” she explained patiently. “There’s the town and there’s us, and that’s how it’s always been.”

“And how’s that been working out for you?”

“A hell of a lot better than it’s worked out for those of us who tried to trust the people in this town,” she shot back. She let out an impatient hiss, trying to settle herself. “As long as the Troubles exist, you can’t change the way things work. I can talk people into working with you – _temporarily_ – when you’re actually working on ending them, but for just putting out fires in the meantime? I have to be loyal to my people first.” She brushed a hand against his jaw. “You understand, right?”

“Yeah.” Nathan wasn’t sure how much he really meant it. “Okay,” he conceded. “This part, sending people out into the woods? I’ll leave you to it. Just keep me informed.”

“Of course I will,” Jordan said. She looked at her watch. “I’ve got to get back to work.” A little grin. “Think you can stay long enough to order coffee?”

“Wish I could,” Nathan said, which he did mean. “We’re a man short; Tommy called in sick.” He brushed her hair back from her face and kissed her lightly. “Keep me posted.”

*

“Lynn, I need you to clean the grill.”

Lynn gave her shift leader a startled look. “What, _now_?” she asked, indicating the stack of dirty dishes she’d just started washing.

“It’s not like we’ll have time to do it later, once the real crowds start coming in,” Kate told her. “The dishes can wait for now.”

Lynn was beginning to understand why Casey had been so eager to give up his shift despite the weekend pay incentive. Saturdays at the Grey Gull were a nightmare; everything needed to be done now and there wasn’t enough ‘now’ to go around. “I’ll be right out,” she said, drying her hands and taking a moment to redo the knot she’d put her hair up in.

The grill’s racks were crusted so thickly that Lynn was just taking it on faith that there was metal underneath all the carbon. She knew it must get cleaned occasionally – why else would there be a grill brush in with the cleaning supplies? – but it obviously wasn’t a frequent occurrence. She couldn’t imagine why it suddenly had to be cleaned right this moment. _Did I do something to piss Kate off or something?_

Ten minutes later, her hair was falling loose again, there were black streaks all along her arms – and probably her face, she was guessing – and the only reason she could see any progress was because she knew what the grill had looked like before she started scrubbing at it. She was starting to sweat despite the mild weather, and her arms were already warning her that they were going to ache before she was done.

“It’s just not right, making a sweet little thing like you do all this hard work,” a voice behind her said.

Lynn turned and flashed a customer-service smile at the speaker, a round-faced old woman who was the only customer out on the deck. Being short and baby-faced, Lynn was used to comments like this, from customers and from random people on the street. “I don’t mind it,” she said cheerfully. It wasn’t a _total_ lie; this was one of the worst assignments she’d gotten in a while but there was a certain sense of satisfaction that came with watching the chunks of carbon flake off.

“Of course you don’t; you’re such a nice girl,” the old woman continued, her tone the auditory equivalent of a pat on the head. “But just because you don’t mind it doesn’t mean that it’s all right. At your age you should be out enjoying your life, not toiling away like this.”

It wasn’t the first time Lynn had heard _that_ , either. If you were hanging out with your friends on your day off you got scolded by old people who assumed that everyone under forty was lazy and selfish, and if you were working you got scolded by old people who acted like it was a crime against nature for a teenager to have a job. “I’m fine, really,” she insisted, attacking the grill again. She was starting to worry that this woman was the kind of customer who might demand to speak to management about how hard they were working their employees, which would make it look like _Lynn_ had been the one complaining. “I volunteered for this,” she added, which was true in the sense that she’d agreed to take Casey’s shift.

“Such a _nice_ girl,” the old woman repeated. “But you should be out with your friends on a Saturday! Isn’t there some kind of party at the high school this weekend?”

“Something like that, I guess,” Lynn said vaguely. The fall carnival was the reason nobody had wanted to work today. It wasn’t a big event, really, but there was food and a band and everybody was going to be there, and usually there was some kind of after-party. Lynn hadn’t wanted to miss it, but between her car and her cell phone bill she could use the money that an extra shift would bring in.

“You should be there, dear,” the woman said.

Lynn gritted her teeth. She was busy enough without having someone leaning over her shoulder. “The grill’s not going to clean itself,” she said. It came out more sharply than she had intended, but less sharply than she would have liked.

“Won’t it?” The woman gave Lynn a wink. “Well, perhaps not by _itself_ , but near enough to it. I’m going to tell you a secret trick, dear. Just lay each of the racks out in the sunshine. Draw a bucket of good clean water, and pour it over them while asking the saints to wash away the dust of the earth. Do that three times, and they’ll be far cleaner than you could ever get them on your own.”

Lynn stopped herself from rolling her eyes, but only just. “I think I’ll stick to the old-fashioned way, thanks.”

“Suit yourself. But opportunity is not a lengthy visitor, dear,” the woman admonished. “When a chance arises, you’d do well to take it.” She rose from the table, tucking a couple bills underneath the empty glass she left behind. “I hope you choose to take this one.”

Lynn waited until the old woman was well out of sight before sighing loudly and shaking her head. The friendly weird ones were almost as bad as the angry ones sometimes.

The grill continued to resist her efforts. Another fifteen minutes or so of fruitless effort, and Lynn was starting to wish she believed the old woman. And... well, was there really a reason _not_ to, aside from the complete ridiculousness of it? People were always whispering about weird things happening in this town, right? And if it _didn’t_ work, there was nobody out here to see her making a fool of herself.

Really, there was no point in not at least _trying_ it...

*

Duke allowed himself to be led outside by the nervous girl, who was covered in soot and dust. “I didn’t know who to tell,” she was saying. “I mean, it’s not exactly a _problem_ , but it probably shouldn’t be happening. And someone should know, you know?”

“I don’t,” Duke said patiently. Lynn hadn’t actually explained exactly what she needed him to see, or why she’d come to him first instead of one of her supervisors. Most of his younger employees seemed terrified of the thought of asking “the boss” for anything. “You still haven’t told me what the trouble is.” A wince. He hadn’t meant to say ‘trouble,’ as appropriate a word as it was likely to be.

Lynn didn’t seem to notice. “I’m going to show you,” she said. She led him to the corner of the deck, where the racks from the grill were leaning against the railing. One of them _gleamed_ , so clean that it practically sparkled. “I only did one to start with,” she continued. “The top rack is so much harder to get out that I didn’t want to bother if it didn’t work on the other one.”

“I’m guessing it worked,” Duke said. “And you did that yourself? _Today_?”

“Sort of,” Lynn said. Her eyes flickered back and forth, making sure nobody else was in earshot. It was a gesture Duke knew well, and he leaned in. “Some of the waitresses...” Lynn started. She bit her lip, then took a deep breath and seemed to try to spit it all out at once. “Some of the waitresses say that whenever the cops show up somewhere because something weird happened, you’re not far behind them. So I figured if anyone here was going to believe me, it would be you.”

Duke put a hand to his forehead. Of _course_ the waitresses had been talking about him. Of _course_ he’d managed to hire the only people in town who didn’t pretend that nothing weird ever happened here. “It’s okay,” he said when he realized that Lynn was shrinking away from him. He forced a smile. “Yeah, I’m probably your best bet. So tell me what’s going on. Or show me, whatever.”

The girl’s shoulders sagged in relief. “Thank you,” she said. “Now watch this.” She picked up a bucket that was lying nearby and took it to the tap a few feet away. She struggled to pick it up again once it was filled, but waved away his offer of help. “Oh, saints, wash away the dust of the earth,” she muttered hurriedly, sounding deeply embarrassed, and poured the water over the still-filthy grill rack.

Flakes of carbon fell away from the metal. A _lot_ of them. Duke made a small sound of surprise. “Keep watching,” Lynn said with a little smile, apparently emboldened by his reaction. She repeated the process, this time saying the incantation more clearly. More exposed metal flashed in the sunlight

A third bucket, a third invocation of the saints, and the second rack was as impossibly clean as the first. They looked as if they’d never been used. “I’m impressed,” Duke said mildly. “Think you could do it with the rest of the restaurant?”

Lynn, who had been grinning at the small miracle, looked nervous again, twisting her hands. “I don’t know if it’s actually _me_ doing it,” she said. She told Duke about the strange customer she’d had earlier, the old woman who’d told her she was working too hard and given her the secret to cleaning as if by magic.

“Yeah, probably a good thing you told me,” Duke said when she’d finished. “Do you have any idea who she was?”

Lynn shook her head. “Never seen her before.”

Duke had expected that. “Would you be okay with talking to a sketch artist?”

Lynn’s eyes went wide. “Like, with the police? Do you think she was dangerous?”

“No,” Duke lied. He was long past assuming anyone in this town _wasn’t_ dangerous, no matter how innocuous their Trouble seemed. “There’s just some people who’ll probably want to know who she is.”

The girl bit her lip. “Yeah,” she said after a moment. “I guess I could probably do that.”

“Good.” Duke patted her on the shoulder. “Hey, don’t be nervous, okay? You’re not in trouble.”

“Hey, Lynn, was this your table?” The girl who’d been clearing tables – Duke would remember her name in a minute – held up a slip of paper. “Someone left you a note.”

Well, she wasn’t in trouble with _Duke_. Whether whatever weirdness had taken over the town this time still had something in store for her was another question entirely. He gestured for her to read it.

Lynn’s hands were shaking as she unfolded the paper. “‘Strike the hazel tree three times,’” she read. She looked up at Duke quizzically. “ _What_ hazel tree?”

“I’m gonna guess that one,” Duke said, inclining his head towards the forest beyond the deck. There was one tree that didn’t quite match all the others, and while Duke wasn’t totally sure what a hazel tree looked like, he _was_ sure that all the trees had been identical to each other every _other_ time he’d looked at them.

Lynn hesitated. “Do you really think I should?”

“In my experience, trying to get off this ride in the middle is never a good idea.” When Lynn gave him a blank look, Duke suppressed a sigh. “Yes, you should check it out.” She didn’t move, and her eyes turned pleading. “You want me to come with you, don’t you?” A nod.  
Another sigh, one he didn’t try to cover this time. “All right. Come on.”

Except for the fact that the hazel tree – assuming it _was_ a hazel tree – hadn’t been there yesterday, there didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary about it. It looked about eight feet tall, and just as bare and weather-worn as the trees around it. The soil around it was undisturbed, the roots secure in the ground and the grass growing over them as if it had been there for years. There was a little rise of earth between two of the roots that looked as if someone had buried something there long ago, but even that was solid and overgrown. Lynn stepped towards the tree and raised her hand, then looked back to Duke for approval or reassurance. What she expected to happen – and what she thought he could do about it – he couldn’t imagine, but he gave her a nod. She brought her knuckles down on the bark three times, producing a series of soft, hollow knocks.

With a loud creaking and groaning, the sounds of timber under stress, the tree opened. The branches turned in a circle, pulling the trunk apart from itself like the plies of a rope untwisting when it was turned in the wrong direction. Acting on instinct, Duke caught Lynn by her shirt and pulled her backwards, out of reach of the creaking branches. He shot a furtive glance at the Gull, but nobody came out to investigate the noise.

The groaning and twisting carried on for what felt like several minutes. When it finally stopped, the tree was an egg-shaped cage of gracefully twisted wood surrounding a small pedestal. On the pedestal was a piece of folded green cloth and... _no_. Those couldn’t be shoes. This was starting to make a kind of sense that Duke wasn’t prepared to deal with.

“What _is_ this,” Lynn breathed beside him, eyes wide.

She was hesitating again. Duke took a step forward to try and encourage her, and the tree _growled_ at him. The branches shook with a warning rattle, the cage threatening to snap shut on him. “It’s yours, whatever it is,” he told Lynn, backing off. He gave her a nudge. “Go on, take it.”

The tree relaxed again when he stepped back and Lynn came forward. She reached between the slats of the cage and drew out the shoes and the cloth, making a quick grab for them and pulling her hands back before anything could grab her back. When she had removed the items and stepped clear, the tree made a sighing sound and twisted itself back into its original form with much less drama than the original transformation. She shook out the fabric, which – as Duke had suspected – turned out to be a short, simple dress that looked like it had been made to fit her.

Duke took one of the shoes from Lynn and ran a finger across the edge of it. He sighed with resignation when it sang like a wineglass. “Was there somewhere else you wanted to be today?” he asked her.

Lynn looked sheepish. “It’s the fall carnival,” she told him. “And some of the kids are throwing a kind of party afterwards.”

“Okay,” Duke said, half to himself. He stared off into the distance for a moment, mentally picturing the rest of the day’s schedule, working out who he could ask to come in a little early and who would probably be willing to pick up a couple hours on their day off. “Think you can still make it if I keep you here another half-hour or so, just so I can get someone to cover you?”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that!” Lynn said quickly. “I don’t mind missing it, really. I could use the extra money, anyway.”

“I’ll make sure there’s a couple extra hours on your schedule next week,” Duke told her.

“I don’t understand,” Lynn said. “Why is it such a big deal to you that I get to go?”

“Because the last thing I need in this life is to piss off someone’s fairy godmother.” Duke handed the shoe back to Lynn. “Just try to be home before midnight.”

*

“Jordan McKee is here to see you, honey,” Laverne’s voice crackled over the intercom. “And she brought company.”

Nathan and Audrey exchanged looks. “Send them on back, Laverne,” Nathan said.

“You’re expecting rabbits, aren’t you?” Audrey said.

“Bluebirds,” Nathan corrected. “Maybe singing mice.”

Audrey laughed lightly as she stood up. “You mind if I sit this one out?”

Nathan furrowed his brow. “Because of Jordan? I know you don’t trust her, but—”

“Because of the conversation you’re about to have with animals who don’t think I exist,” Audrey corrected. She didn’t bother to deny Nathan’s first assumption. “I’m not going to be any help, and it kinda creeps me out.”

“That’s fair,” Nathan conceded. Go on; I’ll take care of this.”

Audrey had only taken a few steps out into the hall when Jordan rounded the corner. There were two little boys holding her hands, one who looked about eight or nine and one that Audrey guessed to be around four years old. The younger one buried his face in Jordan’s arm as he caught sight of Audrey. “Oh, _that_ kind of company.”

“It’s okay,” Jordan said, sweeping her arm around the younger boy. “Audrey’s going to help you find your parents. They were out in the woods,” she added to Audrey. “And Jacob’s a little shy.”

“She’s right,” Audrey said, bending down to smile at the kids. “I’m here to help. Why don’t you two come back and sit down, and you can tell me your story.”

“We’re not supposed to talk to strangers,” the older boy said suddenly. “We only talked to her—” he indicated Jordan “—because we were all alone and there wasn’t anyone else. And she’s cool.”

Jordan apparently didn’t miss the flicker of Audrey’s eyebrow. “I did a lot of babysitting when I was younger,” she said dryly. “I’m used to kids.”

“Well, you’re lucky she found you,” Audrey said. She touched the badge on her belt. “I’m not as cool as she is, but I’m a police officer, and so is my partner. Do you think you can talk to the police?”

The boy considered this for a moment before nodding. “I guess that’s okay. I’m Stephen. Jacob is my little brother.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Stephen. Now, how about you come meet my partner and tell us why you were out in the forest all alone?”

Nathan looked surprised at Audrey’s return, and even more surprised at who she had in tow. “I’m assuming these aren’t the people you took with you,” he said to Jordan.

“These are the people we _found_ ,” Jordan said. She gently herded the boys forward so that Nathan could see them. “They’ve got a story to tell.”

Stephen introduced himself more assertively this time, apparently reassured that it was okay to talk to these particular strangers. Nathan shook his hand with adult seriousness and smiled at Jacob, who was still barely peeking around Jordan’s leg. “Take a seat,” he told all three of them, gesturing towards the couch.

The boys still flanked Jordan as they sat down, and when they leaned on her she put an arm around each of them. There was color in her face, and it occurred to Audrey that she must be uncomfortably warm in the leather jacket that covered her from jaw to wrists. She would have taken it off the second it was just the three of them – or just the two of them, had Audrey left – and she didn’t have to worry about hurting anyone, but she seemed to consider keeping the kids close more important. “Now,” Nathan said once they were settled in, “how did you two end up out in the woods on your own?”

“We weren’t on our own,” Stephen said. “Our dad took us. He woke us up this morning and said we were going on a hike, just us boys. We made some sandwiches and we all got in the truck and drove out to the forest. We hiked around for a while, but Jacob got tired, so Dad told us to sit down and eat our sandwiches. He said he was going to walk for a while longer, just to figure out where we should go next, and then he’d come back for us.” The boy’s voice wobbled. “But he didn’t come back. We waited for a long time, and he never came back. So I told Jacob we had to look for him.” Tears were welling up in his eyes now. “I _know_ you’re supposed to stay put when you’re lost in the woods. I know you’re not supposed to wander around if you don’t know where you are. But he didn’t come back! What if something happened to him and he couldn’t find us? There was nobody else to look for us!” He let out a hiccupping sob and buried his face in Jordan’s shoulder.

“It’s okay,” Nathan said gently. He was crouched down beside them now, and he patted Stephen’s head. “You were scared, and you did what you thought was right. Is that when you found Jordan?”

“No,” Stephen sniffled, turning to face them again. “That’s when we found the candy house.”

“What candy house?” Audrey asked, giving voice to the question on everyone else’s faces.

“The scary lady’s candy house,” Jacob said, speaking for the first time. “Like the story.” The attention that followed this declaration was apparently too much for him, as he sank back into the couch and refused to look at anyone.

“I didn’t know it was a candy house at first,” Stephen said. “I thought it was just a regular cabin, like the kind the forest rangers had when we went camping last year. I thought, maybe even if there wasn’t someone in it because it’s not camping season, there might be a phone. But when we got closer it started to look funny, and it smelled like cookies baking. I still didn’t figure it out until we got to the front of the house and I tried the door. There were windows, and Jacob was looking through one and broke a piece off of the windowsill. It was all cake, the whole wall! Big chunks of it like bricks, with frosting holding them all together!” He shivered. “It was just so _weird_. And I was already knocking on the door when I saw it, so we couldn’t just sneak away. And then the door opened so fast the knocker tore off in my hand. There was...” he shivered again and hunched his shoulders, drawing in on himself. “There was a scary lady behind it,” he said, sounding as young as Jacob.

“Scary how?” Audrey asked. She had a feeling she knew what the answer was going to be, and a glance at Nathan made her guess that he was coming to the same conclusion.

“She was old and wrinkly, with a big nose and a big black dress,” Stephen said. He hesitated. “Like... like a witch.” Nathan nodded, and it was what Audrey had been expecting as well. “She was yelling, and she tried to grab me,” Stephen continued. “So I just grabbed Jacob’s hand and I ran, and I didn’t stop running until we ran into Jordan.”

“Literally,” Jordan said. “Nearly knocked me over.”

Audrey and Nathan exchanged looks. Obviously it was a bad idea to dismiss _anything_ as impossible in Haven, but this was the kind of story that they couldn’t just accept without questioning, especially considering the age of the narrator. “Stephen,” Audrey said gently, “I believe that something – or someone – out in the woods scared you. But sometimes, when something scares people, their brains play tricks on them and make them think they saw something they didn’t. Are you absolutely sure you know what you saw?”

“I know it sounds like a story,” said. “But I didn’t make it up. And I can prove it.” He pushed away from Jordan just enough to reach into the pocket of his coat, coming out with a wrinkled sandwich bag. “I told you it came off in my hand,” he said, holding the bag out to Audrey. “I ran away so fast I didn’t know I was still holding it.”

A burst of ginger and spice scent hit Audrey as she opened the bag, and she could see Nathan wrinkling his nose. Inside the bag was part of a door knocker, made of something hard and glossy. Fragments of gingerbread clung to the ends of it, as if it had been somehow anchored to a piece and the cake had given way first when it was pulled. Wordlessly, she handed it over to Nathan for inspection. He turned the piece over in his hands, studying it and giving it an experimental sniff. “It’s pulled sugar,” he said. “The kind they use for art pieces in dessert competitions.” He pulled off a crumb of the gingerbread and crumbled it between his fingers, releasing another cloud of scent. “Do you know about where you were when you found the house?” he asked Stephen.

The boy shook his head. “That wasn’t where we usually go hiking. I don’t know the woods there. And when I ran away from the house, I didn’t know which way I was going, I just ran.”

“My people are looking for it now,” Jordan said. “And for the boys’ father. I figured you’d consider that higher-priority than the talking-animal hunt,” she added to Nathan.

He nodded. “Good call.”

“Do you know if your dad had a phone with him, or some other way to contact him?” Audrey asked.

“I tried to call him on Jordan’s phone,” Stephen said. “It just rang and rang. It didn’t even go to voicemail. And Charlotte didn’t answer.”

“Who’s Charlotte?”

“Our stepmom,” Stephen said. Another concerned look passed between the adults; this story kept getting more familiar. “We got her voicemail, though, and I told her that Dad was missing and Jordan was taking us to the police station.”

“Good,” Nathan said, standing up. He held out his hands to the boys. “I’m going to take you back to the front desk,” he told them. “The officer there is going to keep trying your parents until someone answers, and we’ll find somewhere more comfortable for you to wait until they come for you.”

Stephen looked uncertain. “Is Jordan coming with us?”

“I need to ask her some more questions,” Audrey said quickly. “But we’re going to take good care of you.”

“It’s okay,” Jordan added. “I’ll check in on you when I’m done here. We’re all going to make sure you find your dad and get home safely.”  
Stephen agreed to go, although reluctantly, but Jacob took more coaxing. Eventually, though, he latched on to Nathan’s arm as tightly as he had to Jordan’s.

“ _Thank_ you,” Jordan said fervently as the door closed behind them. She immediately shed her jacket and gloves; the tank top underneath was dotted with sweat.

“You need me to open a window?” Audrey asked.

“I’m used to it,” Jordan said, only a little bitterly. “I’ll be fine.”

Audrey nodded and sat down behind her desk, putting a professional distance between them. It was true enough that she didn’t trust Jordan, or any of the Guard for that matter, nor did she like what associating with them was doing to Nathan. But if Jordan was willing to be an ally, especially in a case that involved lost children, it would be foolish to turn down her help without a better reason than nebulous suspicion. “You have anything to add that you didn’t want the kids to hear?”

Jordan spread her hands. “I didn’t see anything out there. No gingerbread houses, no witches, and no talking animals. I mean, I _believe_ them,” she said, tilting her head to indicate the door knocker on Nathan’s desk, “but I don’t have any more evidence than that. And none of my people have reported in about finding anything, although you know how cell service can get out there.”

“Which is hopefully the only reason we can’t contact their dad,” Audrey added.

“Hopefully,” Jordan said significantly. She bit her lip, giving Audrey an appraising look. “We’re on the same page here, right? I mean, this whole thing... it’s _Hansel and Gretel_.”

“Yeah,” Audrey agreed, glad she hadn’t had to be the one to say it.

Jordan looked as relieved as Audrey felt that it was out in the open now, and that they were both thinking it. “You remember how that story started? Hansel and Gretel didn’t just get lost in the woods; their father deliberately left them there. Because their stepmother told him to.”

“You think these kids’ father doesn’t _want_ to be found,” Audrey understood.

“And that trying to call their stepmother might have been a mistake,” Jordan added.

“We can’t know that until we find at least one of the parents,” Audrey said. “If there _is_ something weird going on, we can find a way to protect the kids once we know what it is, but until then we have to treat them like any other lost children.”

“I know.” Jordan leaned back with a worried sigh, then let out a short, sarcastic laugh. “So we’ve got at least two Troubles going on in the woods outside town. This, and your animal incidents.”

“Maybe not.” Something was beginning to fall into place in Audrey’s head. “How much did Nathan tell you about the animal problems?”

Jordan shrugged. “Just that someone got attacked by a talking wolf last night, and Duke rescued a talking squirrel this morning.”

“Not just attacked by a wolf,” Audrey told her. “It broke into a cabin, and the owner found it in her bed like it was waiting for her. And the owner’s granddaughter said the same wolf tried to steer her off the path on her way out to the cabin.”

“ _Little Red Riding Hood_ ,” Jordan finished the thought for her. “And Duke’s run-in with the squirrel?”

“Nathan said the squirrel keeps saying it owes Duke for saving its life. People getting repaid for their kindness to small animals; that’s one of those themes that pops up all the time in stories.” Audrey rested her forehead on her hand. “It’s all the same Trouble. Someone is turning Haven into a fairytale forest.”

*

“That’s what you’re thinking, too?” Nathan asked when Audrey filled him in on her new theory about the current Trouble. It was the same theory that he had started piecing together after he’d handed the kids over to Stan at the front desk.

“It ties everything together,” Audrey said. She and Nathan were standing outside the break room, where one of the other officers had taken the boys to get them some water and something to eat. Jordan had joined them once she and Audrey had emerged from the office, and Jacob was still huddled up against her.

Nathan nodded. “ _Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood_ , and one of Aesop’s fables.”

“Aesop,” Audrey repeated. “That was the one I couldn’t figure out. I guess that counts as a fairy tale, if you’re really loose on the definition.”

“They’re all kids’ stories,” Nathan said with a shrug. “There’s a common thread, at least. And it might explain why Duke’s squirrel couldn’t see or hear you. If everyone else is caught up in a story, you could be the audience: you can watch what’s happening, but you can’t affect it.”

“It’s a good theory,” Audrey said thoughtfully. 

“Not the first time we’ve seen a story come to life,” Nathan added. “You think it’s T.J. again?”

“First thing I thought of,” Audrey said. She shook her head. “I already called him. He hasn’t been anywhere near where the incidents happened, and he swears he hasn’t been reading any fairy tales.” She smiled gently. “He said he’s mostly reading nonfiction these days. A lot of science books. Apparently, if the stuff he’s reading about is already happening somewhere it doesn’t have the same effect here.”

“So we’ve got a second person who can bring stories to life,” Nathan said. “Anyone else in T.J.’s family have his Trouble?”

“The only family he has in town are his in-laws. He’s not related to anyone local by blood, not that he knows about, anyway.”

“So we’ve got a _what_ ,” Nathan said, half to himself. “But not a _who_ or a _how_. Or a _why_ , if there is one.”

“It’s not a lot more than we had this morning,” Audrey agreed. “But now that we know what we’re looking for we can start figuring out what the connection between everyone involved is.”

“No leads on that yet,” Nathan said. He held up his notebook, where he’d been working through the information they had so far. “Margo spent all day yesterday at home; she didn’t see or speak to anyone other than Erin. Erin’s been out of town, and she drove straight to the cabin without talking to anyone else in town. And our other two witnesses are a squirrel and a pair of kids,” he concluded. “Not the best sources of information.”

“No,” Audrey agreed. “We’re going to have to wait until the boys’ parents show up, see if they can tell us anything more significant. Assuming we can trust them.” When Nathan gave her a questioning look, she repeated the suspicion Jordan had voiced to her. “But we can’t even begin to guess at that until they get here,” she added.

It was hardly a wait at all before Charlotte Smith-Prentiss finally checked her voicemail and arrived to pick up her stepsons, and the way Jacob immediately pulled away from Jordan and leapt into her arms went a long way to allay the concerns of the other adults in the room. Unlikely to be a wicked stepmother, then.

“I don’t know what Rick was thinking,” Charlotte said when they finally managed to pull her away from the children again so they could question her in private. “He and the kids have a boys’ day out every once in a while, but it’s always something he’s planned in advance and he always tells me where they’re going just in case I need to reach them. But they were all gone before I woke up this morning, without even leaving a note. This is so unlike him.”

“Has he done anything else out of the ordinary lately?” Audrey asked. “Or has anything unusual or worrying happened to your family recently?”

Charlotte blew out a breath. “He’s been worried a lot lately,” she said. “His company is making some cutbacks, and there’s a chance he might get laid off. It’s not a sure thing yet, just a risk, but we’ve been talking a lot about what to do if it happens. We might have to move out west with my family if he can’t find anything here.” She shook her head. “Really, we’re just worried about how it’s going to affect the kids.”

Audrey silently pushed her notepad towards Nathan. _H+G’s parents couldn’t afford to take care of them_ , she’d written on it. It was true, and it was also the kind of worry that could be enough to activate someone’s Trouble. The two of them held a wordless conference for a moment before coming to an agreement. “Mrs. Smith-Prentiss,” Nathan said carefully, “are you familiar with the Troubles?”

Her eyes widened. “What do they have to do with my husband losing our kids in the woods?”

“We don’t know if they’re connected,” Nathan said. “But it’s a possibility. Do you know if you, or your husband, or anyone in your families is Troubled?”

“No,” Charlotte said firmly. “My family’s not even from Haven originally. And as for Rick...” she trailed off and shook her head, looking down at her hands. “I made him swear to me that he wasn’t before we got married, and that as far as he knew his first wife wasn’t, either. I don’t hate the Troubled,” she said, so quickly that Nathan wondered if he’d reacted without realizing it. “God knows they can’t help how they’re born. But...” a helpless shrug. “I love those kids, and I think I’m getting the hang of being a mom. But at the time I was barely confident that I could raise two _normal_ kids. I didn’t know if I could handle any surprises down the road.”

“It’s all right,” Audrey told her. Under the table, her leg nudged against Nathan’s; he wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be reassurance or admonition. “Is there anything else you can tell us, anything unusual that you’ve seen or heard in the last couple days that might help us understand what happened here?”

“No, nothing. And Rick tells me about everything, but he hasn’t mentioned anything out of the ordinary.” Charlotte shook her head. “Believe me, if there was anything I could say to explain what happened to my husband, and maybe where you could find him, I would. I just want to know he and the kids are okay.”

“Well, as far as we can tell, your boys are fine,” Nathan assured her. “Just very shaken up, and maybe a little dehydrated.”

Charlotte’s shoulders slumped in relief. “Does that mean I’ll be able to take them home?”

Another look passed between Nathan and Audrey. “Not just yet,” Audrey said gently. She rested her hands on Charlotte’s. “Until we know just what happened to your husband, and whether he might have been acting under the effects of something we can’t yet identify, we’re not ready to release them.”

Charlotte slowly pulled her hands away, eyes narrowing. “What effects are you talking about?”

A knock on the door interrupted before Nathan or Audrey could answer. “Chief?” Stan asked, poking his head into the room. “You got a minute?”  
Exchanging a brief glance with Audrey, Nathan got up and followed Stan into the hall. “What’s going on?”

“Rick Prentiss just showed up at the front desk,” Stan told him quietly. “Thought you’d want to know right away.”

Nathan nodded, not sure if he was relieved or not. “Good. Set him up in the other interview room.”

When he returned to the first interview room, Charlotte was still pressing Audrey for information that she wasn’t willing to give. “We can’t say anything more at this time,” Nathan cut in, making his voice as flat and formal as he could. He gave Audrey a nod, inviting her to follow him. “And now you’ll have to excuse us; there’s something we need to take care of.” Another nod, towards Stan this time. “He’ll escort you back to the front desk, and I’d like you to wait there until one of us can get back to you.”

“What was that all about?” Audrey demanded when they were back out in the hall.

“We’ve got a more important interview waiting on us.”

Rick Prentiss had arrived at the station under his own power and in considerable panic, and he’d nearly burst into tears when someone told him that his missing children had been found unharmed. “Please, can I see them?”

“Not right now,” Nathan told him. “We have some questions we need to ask you first. Can you tell us what you were doing out in the woods with your boys this morning?”

“God help me, I don’t know,” Rick said, his voice small and helpless. He buried his face in his hands. “It just seemed like the best thing to do.”

“ _What_ seemed like the best thing to do?” Audrey pressed gently.

His voice got even smaller. “Leaving them out there. Oh, God.”

When no further response was forthcoming, Audrey spoke again. “Mr. Prentiss, we need to know exactly what happened. Just start from the beginning and tell us everything.”

It was her “Troubled whisperer” voice, the one that was so soft and gentle while somehow still leaving no room for argument. Like so many before him, Rick was unable to resist it. “Last night,” he started, clearing his throat and trying to keep his voice steady and calm, “my wife and I were talking about our financial situation. We were discussing what our options will be if I lose my job, and what will be best for the kids. And after she fell asleep I realized... I realized that we might not be what’s best for them. I thought, maybe they’d be better off with someone else. But we couldn’t just ask someone else to take them in; everyone we know is in the same boat if the company starts making cuts. But if they were lost...” He was staring straight ahead now, not looking at anything. “So I took them out to the forest. Someone was bound to find them, someone who wouldn’t know where they’d come from and who could take care of them. And if they _weren’t_ found... would that be any worse than having parents who couldn’t provide for them properly?”

Rick’s face was a mask of horror, his voice shaking with the shock of what he was saying. His obvious revulsion at his own actions was the only thing keeping Nathan from wanting to throttle him. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” Rick continued in a near-whisper. “It just made so much sense last night. And even this morning, after I got them out there. I was—” he broke off in a choking noise, tears building in his eyes. “I was in the truck and pulling back onto the main road when I realized what I’d done. I went back to look for them right away, but all I found was a pile of breadcrumbs from their sandwiches.” He was sobbing now, his head in his hands. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened. My poor little boys...”

“They’re all right,” Audrey said, her voice still soft. Nathan could see in her face that she was having the same mixed feelings that he was, trying to remind herself that what he’d done might not be his fault. “We have reason to believe that you weren’t in control of your actions when you took your kids out today. There are other cases that we think might be connected to yours.”

Rick’s eyes were wide when he looked up at her. “There are? Has anyone been hurt?”

“Not so far,” Audrey assured him. “We’re looking into the cause of some of the other strange behavior we’ve been seeing. Will you help us?”

“Of course, I’ll do anything,” Rick said quickly. “I don’t want this to happen to anyone else’s kids.”

“Neither do we,” Audrey said. “Now, to start off, tell us everything that’s happened to you over the past few days.”

*

Questioning Rick Prentiss brought them no closer to an answer than they’d been before he’d arrived. He confirmed his wife’s declaration that nobody in his family was Troubled, nor had he seen or experienced anything out of the ordinary recently. His social and professional life didn’t seem to overlap with that of anyone else who’d been affected, and he was one of the few people in town who wasn’t a regular patron at the Grey Gull.

“And I still kind of want to punch him,” Nathan confessed when he and Audrey were alone again.

“It’s not his fault,” Audrey reminded him. “Probably. But me too.” She gave him a sympathetic smile. Between the two of them, there wasn’t a lot of room for leniency towards someone who might have abandoned his kids. “And I’m not okay with sending those kids home until we’re sure whatever’s causing this isn’t going to strike the same place twice.”

“Probably a good idea to get Claire’s input on the family, too,” Nathan suggested. “Just to make sure there’s not something else going on.”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Audrey agreed. “I don’t think their dad is going to trust himself with them until he gets a professional all-clear, anyway.”

“And maybe not even after that.”

“Yeah.” Audrey shook her head. “This Trouble is providing the story, but not the happily ever after.”

“Business as usual, then.”

A mirthless chuckle. “Pretty much.” Audrey eyed her phone. “We should probably give Duke a heads-up, let him know that the situation has changed. He needs to know what to look for, and he’d probably appreciate knowing exactly why a small woodland creature is honor-bound to him.”

A slow grin crept over Nathan’s features. “Because he’s turning into a Disney Princess?”

That mental image was enough to stop Audrey in her tracks for a moment. “Probably not how I’ll put it,” she said, highlighting Duke’s name on her contacts list. “As interesting as it would be to see his face.”

The phone rang for a good while, and when Duke finally answered he sounded out of breath. “Tell me you have good news,” he said, the playful tone he usually used with her absent.

“Wish I did,” Audrey said, momentarily taken aback by his brusqueness. “We’ve been looking for the wrong thing. The Trouble we’re dealing with isn’t about talking animals, it’s—”

“Fairy tales?” Duke cut her off. “Yeah, I figured that one out when one of my kitchen staff got poached by her fairy godmother.”

Audrey raised one eyebrow and set her phone on the desk, putting it on speaker and motioning Nathan over so he could hear. “Say that again?”

“I’ve apparently got Cinderella bussing my tables,” Duke said. He gave them a synopsis of what had happened with Lynn. “And now I’m short-handed for the next hour and I’m going to have to pay out some overtime,” he concluded. “And I’m not too thrilled at the thought of being someone’s wicked stepmother.”

Was that better or worse than the thought of him being a Disney Princess? A glance at Nathan told Audrey that he was contemplating the same thing. “Where’s Lynn now?” she asked.

“At the carnival, I’d assume; she left about half an hour ago.”

“You let her go?” Nathan cut in sharply.

There was a definite change in the timbre of the voice on the other end as Duke realized he was talking to both of them. “You know my policy on getting involved where I don’t have to,” he said coolly. “If you want to take your chances with the Fair Folk, be my guest, but I’m not in any hurry to get on a fairy godmother’s bad side. It doesn’t matter how clever you are, _nobody_ wins an argument with a fairy. Not even with a good fairy.”

Nathan rolled his eyes so hard Duke could probably hear it over the phone. “Right, because ‘good fairy’ is so much more plausible than ‘the Troubled person behind all of this.’”

“Don’t give me that look,” Duke said, confirming Audrey’s suspicions. “She’s not a local.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she tipped seven dollars on two iced teas and my staff wasn’t tearing each other apart to claim her. There are things waitresses remember.”

“And Lynn?” Audrey added. “You’re sure it’s not her?”

“She doesn’t think so. Which doesn’t guarantee anything, but this is the first weird thing that’s happened to her. You’d think that if she was the one causing everything it would hit her first, right?”

“He has a point,” Nathan muttered, his voice grudging.

“Now, was that really so hard to say?” Duke asked, voice dripping with saccharine sarcasm.

“But there doesn’t seem to be any geographic progression to what’s happening,” Audrey said, interrupting before the two of them could get any more aggressive at each other. Funny, she’d have assumed they’d be _easier_ to deal with when they weren’t in the same room. “Margo’s cabin is nowhere near where the boys found the gingerbread house – I’ll tell you later,” she added as Duke made a questioning sound, “and the Gull is in between them. Even if it’s someone traveling, they’re taking a pretty strange route.”

“That’s assuming people are getting chosen by their location,” Nathan said, drumming his fingers thoughtfully on the desk. “We’ve got a girl who was already going to visit her grandmother in the woods before anything started, a pair of kids with a stepmother with money problems, and a girl who’s doing her best to do a dirty job but would rather be at the ball. And Duke.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure how he fits in, either,” Audrey agreed.

“How he fits into what?” Duke asked.

She leaned in towards the phone. “This Trouble might be specifically targeting people who already fit the parameters of the original stories,” she said. “It takes an existing situation and... spins it out into a fairy tale.”

“And this translates into me being the Squirrel Whisperer how, exactly?”

“Because you’re important somehow,” Nathan said with a sigh.

There was a thoughtful silence. “Say that again?”

“You heard me.” Nathan’s voice held a warning. “You’ve got someone who owes you his life, and who’s looking to discharge that debt as soon as he can. If I had to guess, I’d say there’s going to be some situation very soon where your own life is going to be in danger and you have to cash in on this to save it, and maybe someone else’s.”

A long silence. “Because I’m not paranoid enough already?” Duke finally said. He let out a puff of air. “I gotta go. If I don’t get back in there soon, that squirrel’s gonna have to save me from an angry waitress armed with a salad fork.”

As she hung up, Audrey shot Nathan a look. “It’s not a bad theory,” she said. “In fact, I’d say it’s probably the right one. But did you have to put it quite like that? He already thinks he’s got one death threat hanging over his head.” She tried not to look at Nathan’s arm, his long sleeve currently concealing the tattoo there.

“I didn’t say anything he wouldn’t have figured out on his own,” Nathan said, unconcerned. Audrey was pretty sure he knew exactly what she wasn’t saying, but he didn’t make any acknowledgement of it. “And he’d be in worse shape if we knew there was a chance something was gunning for him and we _didn’t_ tell him.”

Which was true, and Audrey definitely would have warned him if Nathan had come up with it while they weren’t on the phone. She just might have found a gentler way to phrase it. And she was sure Nathan _could_ have found a better way if he’d wanted to, but his perpetual desire to goad Duke had taken over again. “You’re aware that he’s probably going to decide that we’re the safest place to be until this all gets solved,” she pointed out.

“He’s probably not wrong about that,” Nathan said. “And we’re going to want him around.” Audrey raised a questioning eyebrow. “You heard what he said about the Fair Folk,” Nathan continued.

“I heard it, but I don’t see how it’s relevant. He didn’t want to get involved; that’s pretty much his default state if you don’t push him.” Audrey would like to think she knew that better than most people, having become an expert at knowing how to push him.

“He didn’t want to get involved because even clever people don’t come out on top when they mess with fairies,” Nathan corrected her. “ _Duke Crocker_ is admitting that there’s an entire class of... people, for lack of a better word, who can out-weasel him. And he said it like it was so obvious that he shouldn’t have had to explain it to me.”

“Which is how he talks to you pretty much all the time, especially when you’re accusing him of something,” Audrey pointed out. “Still not sure what you’re driving at.”

“Would _you_ have thought of that right away?” Nathan asked. “Even once you believed you were dealing with a fairy godmother, would you have decided that you’d heard enough stories to guess at what would happen if you interfered?”

That gave Audrey pause. “No,” she admitted. “Fairy tales aren’t the way my reading taste usually leans.”

Nathan gave her a slight, ironic smile. He knew full well about her – well, the _other_ Audrey Parker’s – literary weaknesses. “They’re obviously in Duke’s wheelhouse,” he said. “There are rules to dealing with fairies and fairy tales, and he not only knows them, he’s _following_ them. If whoever is causing all this is playing by those same rules, it’s a good idea to have someone on hand who can rattle them off without even having to think about it. He might even be able to help us figure out who’s in the line of fire.”

It was a good argument. Audrey gave a slow, thoughtful nod. “Makes sense,” she said. She eyed the clock. “He said he was getting some relief in about an hour, right? Give him until then, and if he doesn’t end up back here on his own I’ll drop in on him.”

“Better you than me,” Nathan muttered.

“Pretty much, yeah.” Audrey drummed on her desk with a pencil for a moment, and then couldn’t resist commenting. “Duke reading fairy tales. Don’t think I’d have called that one.”

“He reads everything,” Nathan said with a shrug. “Or he did when we were younger, anyway. There was a while when he was dropping by the public library every day. Probably went through every book they had before he was twenty.”

“Seriously?” Audrey gave a little laugh. “Mister ‘the only reason I don’t have a rap sheet a mile long is because you can’t prove anything’ was a baby bookworm?” She shook her head. It was, when she really thought about everything she knew about him – and everything she’d seen aboard his boat – not all that surprising, but it was still _unexpected_. “That’s kinda cute.”

The scratching of Nathan’s pencil as he worked on his case notes suddenly stopped. “I wouldn’t bring the subject up with him if I were you,” he said. The words came out slowly and carefully, as if he had realized too late that _he_ shouldn’t have brought it up.

Audrey’s eyebrows went up. “Something I should know about?” she asked.

“It’s not important right now,” Nathan said, a little shortly. “And it’s not something he’d appreciate me telling you.”

Of all the strange things she’d heard today, the idea that Nathan was deliberately not saying something about Duke in order to spare his feelings was the one that Audrey found hardest to believe. “Okay,” she said, giving Nathan a nod. “Dropping the subject.”

Nathan’s answering nod was grave, but grateful. “The library probably wouldn’t be a bad place to investigate, though,” he said by way of a subject change.

“See if our Troubled person is of the literary persuasion?” Audrey followed his train of thought. “Yeah, not a bad idea. And see if Jordan’s people are willing to go out on the search again. _Hansel and Gretel_ isn’t the only story about kids getting lost in the woods, and _Little Red Riding Hood_ doesn’t have the only Big Bad Wolf.”

“That was only a feasible idea when we thought it was confined to a specific location,” Nathan pointed out to her. “There’s just too much ground to cover. But I can maybe talk to the forestry service, see if they fake some kind of alert that’ll keep people out of the woods.”

“At least the ones who don’t live out there,” Audrey said. “The first victims we know of were attacked in their own cabin, don’t forget.” A wry smile. “Of course, given how that turned out, we might be able to assume that the people who’re in the woods already can take care of themselves.”

Nathan didn’t return the smile. He was looking thoughtful, and even more serious than usual. “This is a big one, Audrey. I don’t think we can keep it from spreading, and I don’t know how we’re going to contain it while we figure out how to solve it.”

“The same way we always do. We put out the fires as they come up, and we get everyone we can find in on the act. We can still spread people out far enough to keep their ears to the ground, and if there are rules to follow we can make sure they know what they are.” She put a hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “We can do this. We just have to figure out where to start.”  


*

The crumbling, overgrown stone wall was about eight feet tall, if Annabeth was gauging it right. An easy climb, and if she was careful the drop on the other side wouldn’t be a problem, either. Rob had made it, anyway, and Annabeth wasn’t about to let her older brother best her at anything. He thought he was so cool and so above her, just because he was in high school now. Annabeth knew he’d hit their last softball over the wall on purpose, just to show off. He’d probably been planning on doing it ever since he found out Becky Crane was planning on bringing her little brother out to the park to play ball with them today. Probably thought he’d get to show off to her twice, first by knocking the ball out of the park – literally – and second by going over the wall into the creepy house’s backyard to get it back.

Not that Becky and Brian had ever shown up. Not that _anybody_ had shown up, which was strange. Usually by this time on a Saturday there’d be at least a dozen kids running around the park. But today it was just the three of them, and Rob had apparently decided that showing up his sibs was good enough because the first pitch Shawn had thrown at him had gone straight over the wall. Rob had gone right over after it, making sure to make it look like the climb was no effort at all and cheerfully shouting back to them about just how creepy the overgrown yard was.

That had been a good ten minutes ago. He should have been back by now. Annabeth gave an annoyed grunt. “I’m going after him.”

“Mom said you weren’t supposed to leave me alone,” Shawn said behind her.

“It’ll just be for a minute.” Annabeth tried not to roll her eyes. Shawn would follow her and Rob anywhere without fear, but leave him on his own for two seconds and he turned into a complete baby.

“That’s what Rob said,” Shawn reminded her. “What if whatever got him gets you, too?”

“Nothing ‘got’ him,” Annabeth scoffed. “He’s just messing with us.” Privately, she wished she felt as confident about that as she sounded. Rob had been talking to them over the wall when he first went over, and she didn’t like the way his voice had just faded out. She didn’t think he had the patience to keep quiet this long for the sake of a prank. She sighed and ruffled Shawn’s hair. “He just wants to scare us, okay? He thinks we’ll go running home for help because he disappeared, and by the time we get back he’ll be standing out here waiting for us and saying that he just went to the bathroom or something and we freaked out over nothing, and Mom will think we’re the ones causing trouble. He probably thinks I’m too chicken to go after him. But I’m not scared of a weird old house, and you’re not scared of a stupid joke, right?”

Shawn perked up. “Right!” he chirped. “I’m coming with you.”

“No, you’re not,” Annabeth said. She and Rob could make it over that wall with no trouble, but she was less sure about Shawn. And if they brought him home with bruised hands and skinned knees, all three of them would be in for it. “Mom’s already suspicious; you want her to find out that Rob’s been letting you run wild? She’ll never let you out of the house without an adult again. You want that?” Shawn shook his head adamantly. “Didn’t think so. I’ll be right back, okay?” Annabeth promised again. “Just wait out here.”

The rough surface of the wall provided plenty of handholds. Annabeth scrambled up it like a lizard, crouching at the top and surveying the yard below. The idea that Rob might have gotten lost somehow suddenly didn’t seem so far-fetched. The backyard was a mess, plants that might once have been a nice garden turning it into a wild thicket. Dark green leaves and creepers covered every bit of the ground, thicker and more lush than they should have been this late in the year. _How long has it been growing wild like this?_ Annabeth wondered. She couldn’t remember anyone having ever lived in this house, and she’d lived just down the street her entire life. It was like a haunted house’s yard. _Or a secret garden_ , she thought, remembering the book she’d loved when she was younger. That made her smile, and made the tiny forest below seem less daunting. “Rob?” she called out. No answer. “Rob, stop messing around.”

When there was still no response, she started to lower herself over the wall. She could see a flattened patch in the ground cover, probably where Rob had dropped to the ground. She aimed for the same spot, stretching her arms out to get her feet as close to the ground as she could before letting go. The landing was soft, and she turned around to get a better look at the yard.

It was even more intimidating up close. Some of the bushes were taller than she was, and she couldn’t see the opposite fence. “If you can’t find the ball, just admit it and come back,” she said, still hoping that Rob would answer and she wouldn’t have to go hunting for him. That was starting to look like it might be the answer; she would bet that you could lose a whole stadium’s worth of softballs in this yard.

This might take a while. “Shawn?” Annabeth called, figuring her little brother would feel better if she stayed in contact with him. “Shawn!” she repeated a moment later when there was no answer. For a moment she started to worry that something might have happened to him, but then she relaxed. More likely the thickness of the plants in the yard was muffling her voice, making it hard for Shawn to hear her over the wall. That would explain why Rob’s voice had faded out. Although it still didn’t explain why he wasn’t answering now.

If she looked carefully, Annabeth could see places where the plants had been bent or compressed like someone had recently walked through them. More than one somebody, from the look of it, and going off in several directions. What was going on here? Fighting down the urge to turn around and run right back over the wall, Annabeth picked a trail at random and followed after it. As she walked she poked at the underbrush, looking for the missing ball, but that was no longer the most important thing on her mind.

The trail she was following ended abruptly at a thinned-out spot in the thicket, and as Annabeth stepped out into it she nearly shrieked as a pair of grey hands reached out for her. She tried to jump back, and promptly fell on her butt.

From this angle, the scene became clearer. The hand was part of a stone statue, an abstract figure that dominated the clearing. Annabeth stood up and circled it carefully, trying to get a better look at it. Finally she realized that it was meant to represent a teenage girl, bent over to pick up something off the ground. The hands that had frightened her were reaching out for a real soccer ball just in front of the statue. Now that she knew what she was looking at, it was kind of cool looking. A neat, if weird, piece of yard art that must have been left over from when someone lived here. Annabeth laughed at herself, and how badly this weird yard was getting to her.

She turned around to go back the way she came, and this time she did shriek. The person in front of her now was definitely real, a tall, thin old woman with a severe face. “And what do you think you’re doing back here?” the woman demanded.

Annabeth opened and closed her mouth a few times before she could manage any words. “I’m sorry!” she finally stammered. “I didn’t think anyone still lived here!”

“And that was reason enough to come poking around somewhere you don’t belong?”

“I wasn’t poking around,” Annabeth protested, realizing after it came out of her mouth that it wasn’t true. “I mean, I was, but I wasn’t trying to snoop or anything. My brother hit a ball over your wall, and he came back here looking for it and then he didn’t come back. Have you seen him?”

The old woman seemed to relax a little. “The older boy who was here not long ago? He’s been and gone,” she said. “Although I don’t believe he found what he was looking for, nor do I know where he went.”

Indignation bubbled up in Annabeth’s chest, burning away her fear and worry. She had been right; Rob _was_ just messing with them. He’d probably gone over the fence on the opposite side of the yard, and had been hiding somewhere waiting to see how badly she and Shawn would freak out. Or maybe he’d even run off to meet up with a girl and had left them alone. He was going to get into so much trouble when they got home. “Thank you,” she said to the old woman. “Sorry we bothered you.”

“You meant no harm, I suppose,” she said, sounding much less unfriendly now. “If you wish, you may continue your search for your lost item. But take only what’s yours, do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Annabeth said. She looked back at the statue and its accompanying soccer ball. “I guess something that looks like it just got lost back here might really be part of your art, huh?”

A strange smile. “In a sense,” the woman said.

“It’s a really interesting sculpture,” Annabeth said. She bobbed her head at the woman, feeling almost like she should curtsey or something. “Thank you for not being mad. I’m sorry my brother and I were trespassing; we really thought there was no one here anymore. If we lose something in your yard again, we’ll knock, I promise.”

Another strange smile. “See that you do,” the old woman said. “Don’t linger back here for too long.” She turned and walked away, and within just a few seconds Annabeth couldn’t see her anymore through the brush.

Annabeth caught her breath, exhaling heavily as she recovered from the startling encounter. She was going to _kill_ Rob when she found him.

No longer concerned for her brother’s safety, and having been given permission to keep on searching, she began hunting for the missing softball in earnest. As she poked through the branches, though, she began to wonder if it was really worth the search. It was worse than a needle in a haystack. She did find several more of the strange statues, though, boys and girls of various ages, all posed similarly to the first one, all reaching for or chasing after a ball or other toy on the ground in front of them. It was a neat idea for one statue, Annabeth thought, but this little army was starting to seem just _weird_.

There was no real point to this, Annabeth finally decided. She was never going to find the softball, and her concern was starting to move back towards where Rob was and what he was doing, and to how long she’d left Shawn alone by this point. She was turning around and trying to remember which direction she’d originally come from when something white in the undergrowth caught her eye. _Finally!_

Annabeth pushed the ground cover aside and reached for the ball. As her hand was moving, though, she took a closer look and realized that this was a hard plastic kids’ ball, not the real softball she’d been looking for. She attempted to pull her hand back and leave, but her hand refused to move. Her entire body was refusing to move, in fact.

Before darkness closed in over her mind, Annabeth’s last thought was, _That first statue looked a_ lot _like Becky Crane_.


	3. There Are Rules and There Are Strictures

Nobody bothered to stop Duke as he slipped into the back of the police station and headed for Nathan and Audrey’s office. They rarely did; if anyone asked any questions all he had to say was that Audrey was expecting him, and it was true often enough that by now they just accepted it. It had just been his bad luck this morning that Stan had noticed Snowfall and decided that he had a civic duty to uphold. Duke doubted anyone had even _noticed_ him this time; the entire staff had been absorbed in trying to control a knot of angry people crowded around some kind of golden bird statue, each one refusing to relinquish their hold on it.

Audrey gave him a little smile and a wave as he entered the office, then tilted her head to indicate that Nathan was on the phone. From her expression, Duke got the impression that she _had_ been expecting him this time, not that she’d told him so.

“I understand your position, Mrs. Perrault,” Nathan was saying. “I _know_ I can’t legally press you to release library patron information. I’m not asking you to. I just want to know if you’ve noticed anyone showing an unusual interest in fairy tales recently.” A beat, during which he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, okay, that technically _is_ patron information, but I’m not asking you to release it _officially_.” He dropped his voice with a sigh. “Gina, you know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.” Another pause. “No. Okay. I understand. Thank you for your time.” The last came out with an ironic bite as he hung up the phone.

“No luck?” Audrey asked.

“There are some lines librarians won’t cross,” Nathan said. He quirked a dry eyebrow. “And they do _not_ like you asking them to cross them.”

“They like it even less when you’re a Fed,” Audrey said with a smile. “I was hoping this might be another perk to being a small-town cop.”  
“So was I.” Nathan turned his attention to Duke. “Something I can help you with?”

Duke gave him a grin, the one he knew annoyed him beyond reason. “I can’t just want to enjoy your company?” He wasn’t about to let on how much Nathan’s prediction that he was going to be in life-threatening danger – _again_ – sometime soon had rattled him, especially since he was pretty sure Nathan was _right_. Nobody rescued an animal in a fairy tale and then didn’t end up needing rescuing themselves.

“Speaking of company,” Audrey said before Nathan could offer a cutting remark, “where’s yours?”

“The squirrel? Haven’t seen him since I let him go this morning.” Privately, Duke was taking that as a good sign. He’d had a vague sense that someone was watching him, and there had been occasional sounds like a small animal on the roof or under the deck, but he was telling himself that as long as Snowfall was keeping his distance there was nothing that Duke needed protection from. Of course, exactly _how_ a squirrel was going to protect him from a threat against his life was a question he was trying not to think too hard about. “I figure he’s out enjoying the new trees.” The lone hazel tree was still standing behind the Gull, looking innocuous in a way that Duke found unsettling. He’d have expected it to disappear once its part in the story was through, and he knew too many versions of Cinderella that stretched out over three days. “Why are you trying to shake down the head librarian for information?”

“We don’t shake people down,” Nathan said. “That’s more your style.”

Duke put a hand to his chest. “I’m hurt, I really am.” Sure, he’d used threats and violence occasionally as a last resort, but charm and bribery were _so_ much more effective.

Nathan let out an irritated breath, apparently deciding it was easier to answer the original question than to keep arguing. “We’re looking for someone with an unusual interest in fairy tales,” he said. “Library’s as good a place to start as any.” He gave Duke an appraising look. “Unless you have a better idea.”

“Grade schools?” Duke suggested. “Not that a schoolteacher is likely to tell you anything more than a librarian.”

Audrey and Nathan exchanged one of those looks that reminded Duke that, his friends or no, they were still cops. “Actually,” Audrey said, “we were wondering if you might _personally_ know of anywhere else we should look. If you can see a pattern that we can’t.”

“You seem pretty familiar with the way fairy tales work,” Nathan put in. “More than either of us, anyway. You might have some insight.”

The denial that bubbled up on Duke’s lips was automatic and instinctive. He’d put more work into crafting his reputation than almost any other part of his business, and it had taken plenty of hits since he’d come back to Haven. And even if he’d allowed word to get out that he had a fondness for reading – even in his business, there was good money to be made by looking just a little bit smarter than your competitors – being consulted by the police because of his knowledge of children’s stories was something that was likely to come back to bite him in a couple different ways. And that wasn’t even getting into the plain old _embarrassment_ of admitting to anyone else that he was a man in his thirties who could still watch a Disney movie and tell you everything they left out of the original story.

_Life debt from a squirrel_ , he reminded himself. _And the hazel tree is still outside your window_. It was in his bests interests to help, even more so than usual, and he’d only be admitting it to the two people who already had more than enough embarrassing information on him to make his life miserable if they so chose. “All I do is read them,” he said. “It’s not like I keep tabs on other people who do. I’m not running a book club.”

“You might still know who it’s going to hit next, if you know the rules,” Audrey said. “Or at least know how we can keep out of the way of it.”

“Aside from ‘ignore anything strange you come across and don’t talk to strangers’?” Duke asked wryly.

“Yes, aside from that,” Nathan returned.

“Should have known that wasn’t an option.” Duke closed his eyes and furrowed his brow, concentrating. This wasn’t the first time he’d wondered about the rules that fairy tales all seemed to have in common; it wasn’t even the first time he’d wondered about it _today_. “If we had any princesses lying around town, I’d be telling you to put a guard on them,” he said. “Probably want to keep an eye on some of the old-town families; if any of them have daughters that’s the closest we’re likely to get.” He ticked off a few other possibilities on his fingers. “Step-families. Youngest children, especially in families with three or seven kids. Families with seven kids in general. Really poor people with good hearts. Pretty much anyone else who’s ridiculously nice. Orphans.” He raised his head, fixing Nathan with a steady look. “Especially orphans who could _really_ use some advice from their parents. Watch yourself.”

Nathan studied him, then gave a short nod. He at least seemed to be taking the warning seriously, which was how Duke had meant it. History had already proven that taking parental advice from beyond the grave was a bad idea for both of them, even if Nathan would probably give anything to get lectured by his dad again. “Any other advice?” he asked.

Duke tried not to take the new coolness in his voice personally. “Be nice to animals,” he said automatically, ignoring Audrey’s quiet laugh. “But don’t trust all of them. Wolves... there aren’t a lot of stories where it’s a good idea to listen to wolves. Bears can go either way. Pets and livestock are usually okay, so are birds. And if you rescue something, you can usually trust it.” _I hope_. “Um... be nice to old women, especially ugly old women. Except for you,” he added, nodding to Audrey. “Probably better if you just avoid old women altogether.”

“Why?”

Duke gave her a grin and a wink. “You’re clearly the fairest of them all,” he said. “No point in taking chances.”

Audrey rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “And for everyone else?”

“Don’t take anything that isn’t yours without getting permission first, and that includes picking flowers or drinking from a stream. Don’t eat anything a stranger gives you. Don’t tell anyone or anything that they’re frightening or ugly, even if they ask you. Don’t agree to do someone a favor until you know what it is. And if you do something nice for someone and then they ask you to do something afterwards, do exactly as they tell you, even if it means breaking one of the other rules.” He lifted his head as he recognized the sound of a scratching pen. “Are you seriously writing this down?”

Nathan didn’t actually roll his eyes but it was a near thing. “We didn’t ask you for a list just because we like the sound of your voice,” he said. “Anything else?”

“What do you want, all thousand and one nights?” Duke asked, throwing up his hands. “I’m just throwing out general guesses here; it’s not like I have any actual insight. Anyway, you’re the one who went to college. Shouldn’t you have a better handle on literary analysis than some guy who just happens to read a lot?”

Nathan put his pen down and folded his hands. “Fine,” he said, calmly. “At this moment, and in this context, you’re smarter than me and I need your help. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

It wasn’t. Duke hadn’t been angling for _any_ kind of response; he was just annoyed because he didn’t know what else to offer and it was growing obvious that Audrey and Nathan didn’t have any better information than he did. Which didn’t mean there wasn’t a certain amount of satisfaction in hearing Nathan ask him for help. “Thank you for that,” he said, giving Nathan a faux-gracious nod. “But I still don’t know what else to tell you. There’s probably something I’m missing, and I know there are exceptions to pretty much every one of the rules, anyway.”

“It’s a start, at least,” Audrey said. “If we can get some of the basic information circulating among the people who’ll listen we might be able to minimize the number incidents. And if it doesn’t stop anything from happening we’ve at least got a better idea of where to look when it does happen.”

“Knowing how to solve them might be more useful than knowing how they started,” Nathan pointed out, raising an eyebrow at Duke.

“Once you’re _in_ the story, you should already know the solution to it,” Duke returned, barely refraining from rolling his eyes. “They’re _fairy tales_. I may recognize them better than you do, but it’s not like you haven’t heard them a hundred times, too. Slay the monster, solve the riddle, kiss the princess. It’s straightforward except when it’s not, and half the time all you have to do is be the right person in the right place at the right time, anyway.”

Nathan made a conceding gesture. “And if there isn’t a right person?”

“Then it’s not much of a story, is it?” Both men turned to look at Audrey, and she shrugged. “The rules should work both ways, right? If everything we do in response has to fit the story, then there has to be a story to fit into.”

She and Nathan were both looking at Duke now, waiting for confirmation. He couldn’t help shrinking back just a little bit; as much as he liked being needed he didn’t like the pressure of being the resident expert, especially when he was aware that all of his theories were just best guesses. “That’s assuming that whoever’s causing this has to play by the same rules as the rest of us,” he said slowly. “Which is a big assumption. But yeah, in real fairy tales even the fairies have to follow the rules.”

“So we should assume that our Troubled person does, too, at least until something suggests otherwise,” Audrey concluded. “If we have to find the solution, then they have to at least give us a solution to find.”

“But so far those solutions have been shooting the Big Bad Wolf and running away from the witch,” Nathan returned. “Not exactly true to the spirit of either story.”

“Still within the letter of the law, though,” Audrey said. “The woodcutter kills the wolf and Hansel and Gretel escape from the witch. They just figured out how to skip some of the steps in the middle this time.”

“There’s not a lot of magic in either of those stories,” Duke said. The other two gave him questioning looks. “I mean relatively speaking. Talking wolves and gingerbread houses are lower on the scale than poisoned apples and fairy curses. As the stories get more complicated, the solutions will, too.”

“Why do you assume the stories are going to get more complicated?” Nathan asked.

Duke gave him a dry look. “Because it’s Haven?”

Whatever retort Nathan had been about to offer was cut off by the buzz of the intercom. He touched the button. “Go ahead, Laverne.”

“We need someone to go out to the Preston Heights neighborhood, honey,” Laverne told him. “We’ve got multiple reports of missing children, and they all seem to be centered around one of the unoccupied houses up there.”

“We’re on our way,” Nathan said, switching the intercom off. He raised an eyebrow at Duke. “Ready to go test your theory?”

*

Preston Heights was one of the wealthier neighborhoods, fitting with Duke’s suggestion that the town’s “old money” families might produce the closest thing Haven had to princes and princesses. “The area’s not as high-class as it used to be,” Nathan explained on the drive out. “There’s been a slow exodus going on for a while; people deciding that the location isn’t good enough to justify trying to maintain one of these old houses. Some of them have been standing vacant for years. People have complained that it’s driving down property values, but there’s not much anyone can do about it.”

“Any of those vacant houses built by known crazy people who later disappeared?” Audrey asked.

“There aren’t even any interesting rumors about them,” Nathan said with a faint smile. “They’re just places where nobody lives. We get kids sneaking into them sometimes, but more for the thrill of being somewhere they’re not supposed to be than because they think they might see something creepy.”

“Or because they don’t think anyone will look there for them,” Duke added from the back seat.

Audrey wasn’t sure how to interpret the look that Nathan shot him in the rearview mirror. “The house we’re looking for backs onto a little park,” he continued without acknowledging the interruption. “It looks like that’s where the kids are disappearing from. We’ve only got confirmation that two of the missing kids were actually _in_ the park, but that’s where the rest of them said they were going when they left their homes.”

“And who’s confirming that they saw those two kids in the park before they disappeared?”

“Their younger brother, from the sound of it. He told his mom that his older brother and sister left him alone in the park, and she started calling around and found out that a bunch of the other neighborhood kids weren’t where they were supposed to be, eight of them in total.”

“Any other kids in the family?” Duke asked.

“Doesn’t sound like it,” Nathan said. “Why- Family of three,” he said, answering his own question before he could finish asking it.

“Youngest son in a family of three,” Audrey added. “We’ll start by focusing on him.”

There were already a handful of uniforms on the scene when they arrived at the house. “The house is empty,” an officer told them. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s been in it for months, at least, not even squatters. Nothing in the back yard, either.”

“Okay, thanks,” Audrey said, giving him a nod. “The kid who saw the others disappear, is he here?”

The officer led them to Shawn Morse and his mother, standing just beyond the police cars. There was another knot of people behind them, presumably parents of the other missing kids. Shawn was about seven years old, looking pale and nervous as his mother gripped his shoulders protectively. “Hi, Shawn,” Nathan said, kindly, giving him a reassuring smile. “Can you answer some questions for us?”

Shawn gave a short, twitchy shrug. “I already told them,” he said, tilting his head towards the uniformed officers in front of the house, “I didn’t see anything. I don’t know anything.”

“Shawn, don’t be rude,” his mother chided.

“It’s all right,” Nathan assured her.

“Shawn,” Audrey interjected. When he looked up at her, she smiled at him. “It’s okay if you don’t have the whole answer. This isn’t a test. Just tell us what you _did_ see, and what you _do_ know, and it’ll help us put together the pieces and figure out what you didn’t see.”

That seemed to do the trick. “We all came out to play ball,” Shawn said. “We do it almost every Saturday. There’s usually a bunch of kids in the park, but there wasn’t anyone else today. We waited around for a while, but nobody showed up, so we decided to just do some batting practice by ourselves for a while. Rob hit the ball too hard, and it went over the fence and into the yard. Rob climbed the wall to get it, even though we’re not supposed to.” This last with a furtive look at his mother. “We waited for him, but he didn’t come back. Annabeth said he was probably playing a joke on us, so she went in after him, and then _she_ didn’t come back either. I waited, and I yelled for her, but she didn’t come back and she didn’t _answer_. I didn’t know what else to do, so I went home and told Mom that they were missing.”

“Okay,” Audrey said. “Thank you for telling us everything. Can you and your mom stay here for a while, just in case we have more questions?” Shawn nodded, and his mother gave Audrey a look that said she wasn’t going anywhere until her kids were found. Audrey drew Nathan away with a gesture. “Any theories yet?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Nathan said. “I want to take a look at the backyard for myself, though.”

The gate leading into the yard hung stiffly on its hinges; Audrey could see the fresh marks where one of the officers must have broken the rusted lock to get it open. It was open only a crack, and when she attempted to push it further the hinges screamed in protest.

“There’s nothing back here; I already checked.”

Audrey jumped; Duke had taken her completely by surprise. She hadn’t even noticed him slipping away from them. “Just a bunch of dead bushes,” he continued. “I can’t even see any tracks.”

He was right. The yard was an ankle-deep mess of brown and yellow sticks, with hints of green here and there where the grass underneath was still trying to grow. The area by the gate had been trampled recently, presumably by the officers who’d opened it, but the rest of the yard seemed untouched. “You’d think it wouldn’t be hard to find a softball back here,” Audrey said. She brought her foot down on a small pile of twigs, which crunched loudly. “Even if it broke through the ground cover, it’d leave a pretty obvious hole.” She started towards the back wall, the one that was closest to the park. “And if the kids came over the wall here, there should at least be broken branches where they landed.”

“Assuming they landed here,” Nathan said, almost to himself. He was looking at the top of the wall, not the bottom.

Audrey followed his gaze, but couldn’t see anything unusual about the wall. “You think they came in somewhere else?”

He shook his head. “Not came in somewhere else. Came _out_ somewhere else.” He turned back to Duke. “There are stories about that kind of thing, right? Doors that look like they should lead to the same place, but don’t?”

“You think the kids climbed over the wall and ended up in... some kind of other world or something?” Audrey asked.  
Nathan was still looking at Duke. “I’m just asking if it’s possible.”

“Somehow, asking what’s ‘possible’ here seems like the wrong question,” Duke quipped. When Nathan didn’t react, he sighed and gave a shrug. “Yeah, it’s possible. Places you can only get to under certain conditions are pretty common.”

“So we’ll go back out and take a look over the wall, and figure out what to do from there,” Audrey said. “You two any good at climbing?”

“I may have spent some of my misspent youth in places where I wasn’t supposed to be,” Duke said innocently. “And not always alone.”

“More information than I needed, thanks,” Audrey said dryly.

“Oh, that, too,” Duke said, sounding a bit surprised, and Audrey realized the comment hadn’t been directed at her. He was grinning at Nathan with a mix of mischief and nostalgia. “You were pretty good at getting over fences, as I recall.”

Nathan grunted. “I had to be, with all the ones you dragged me over. And all the places we had to leave in a hurry when someone noticed us.”  
“I never dragged you anywhere,” Duke returned. “All I ever had to say was ‘hey, I know what we should do next’ and you were right behind me every time.”

“It was safer than _not_ following you. If I knew where you were, you couldn’t sneak up on me.”

A light laugh. “Admit it. You _liked_ being in trouble with me.” Duke bumped his shoulder against Nathan’s, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You remember the train yard?”

The sudden curve to Nathan’s lips said he did. Audrey could see him trying to tamp the smile down. “Dad nearly killed me for that one.”

“He would have killed _me_ if I hadn’t gotten away when I did,” Duke reminded him. “And yet you still told me it was the most fun you’d ever had.”

“It was,” Nathan admitted. The smile faded, replaced by something cold and distant. “And then I grew up.” He shouldered past Duke, heading for the gate.

Audrey didn’t think anyone else heard the quiet sigh that followed him. She probably wasn’t supposed to hear it herself. “That’s one way to look at it,” Duke said softly.

From the outside, the wall looked no less ordinary than it had from the inside. Unremarkable stones, crumbling a bit in places, overgrown in others. Audrey had been half expecting some kind of magical haze to be hanging over it. The three of them stared up at it, as if they were all expecting something to happen. Finally, Audrey tapped both men on the arm. “All right, one of you give me a boost. Let’s see what we’re dealing with over there.”

Nathan’s laced hands got her high enough to get a good grip on the wall and pull her upper body over. “Be careful, Parker.”

“I’m not going over yet,” she assured him. “I’m just taking a look.” She swung one leg over the edge of the stones and turned far enough that she could get a good look at the backyard.

It wasn’t the backyard. “Guys?” she called down the wall. “Come take a look at this.”

There was a grunt from either side of her, Duke and Nathan simultaneously clambering up to join her. Nobody said anything for a moment. “We all seeing the same thing?” Nathan finally asked.

“If you’re seeing a tiny suburban jungle,” Duke said, “then yes.”

In contrast to the small, dead yard they’d just left, the view from the top of the wall was a sea of dark green overgrowth, thick moss and creepers carpeting the ground in between overhanging vines and untrimmed bushes. The view seemed to stretch on forever in all directions, fading into a white mist in the distance.

Duke gave a sudden groan and covered his face with one hand, bending his head low and looking nauseous. “Do _not_ look along the wall,” he warned.

Audrey did so before she could stop herself and instantly regretted it. On the side they’d come from, the wall ended normally at the corner, just a few feet from where they were sitting. On the yard’s side, it stretched out for at least a hundred feet before being obscured by the same thick fog that lay over the far reaches of the yard. It was impossible to reconcile the two views, despite the way they abutted each other so abruptly. The resulting vertigo threatened to pull her off the wall. Nathan caught her by the back of her shirt, holding her steady while she looked down and waited for her stomach to realign.

This turned out to be a good place to focus. There was a small depression in the ground cover at the base of the wall, just a couple feet from where they were sitting. She gestured to the other two, drawing their attention to it. “Looks like someone dropped off the wall and landed down there,” she said.

“And there are a couple bushes that look like someone’s been pushing through them recently,” Nathan added.

“Someone kid-sized?” Audrey guessed.

“Most likely.” Nathan leaned out over the yard, peering over it with an intense eye. “Anyone see movement?”

“Nothing,” Duke said. “Like, a disturbing degree of nothing. There’s enough wind that things should at least be rustling a little.”

“There’s wind on _this_ side of the wall,” Audrey pointed out.

Nobody responded to that. They all continued staring out over the impossible yard, none of them sure just what, if anything, they should be looking for. Finally, Duke gave a grunt and swung his leg back over to the outer side of the wall. “Don’t know about you two, but I’d rather figure this all out from the ground.”

Audrey and Nathan couldn’t disagree with that. The two of them followed him down the wall, ignoring the curious looks from the officers on the scene. “So how are we getting the kids back?” Nathan asked.

“I don’t think it’s up to us,” Duke said. “We’ve got a youngest son whose two older siblings have already failed at the quest.” He leveled his chin at Shawn. “If anyone has a chance, it’s him. And it’s probably a bad idea for us to try and interfere with him.”

“You can’t be serious,” Nathan said incredulously. “We don’t even know what’s going on over there. We’re not sending a seven-year-old into it blind.”

“You want my help or not? I didn’t say it was a _good_ option, it just might be the only one we’ve got. I already told you, most fairy tales just need someone to be the right person in the right place at the right time. And I don’t know of any fairy tales that end with ‘and then the cops organized a search party to find the missing kids.’”

“That doesn’t mean we can leave another kid to solve it on his own.”

“And we’re not going to,” Audrey cut in, stepping between the two men. The thought she’d been having was coming to fruition. “I’ll go with him.”

“Right person in the right place at the right time,” Duke reminded her. “Anyone who goes in there and _isn’t_ the one the story says is supposed to solve the problem is probably just going to get tangled up in it along with everyone else.”

“Maybe not. Your squirrel couldn’t see me, remember? Maybe whatever’s going on in there won’t notice me, either. I can go with Shawn and make sure he’s safe, but I won’t try to interfere unless I absolutely have to.” Audrey met their uncertain looks with a solid gaze. It was a good plan, she just had to get them both on board with it. “It’s not like we’ve got a lot of options here,” she reminded them.

“It’s not _my_ squirrel,” Duke grumbled, and Audrey knew she’d won him over. He sighed and spread his hands. “It’s worth a shot, at least. Assuming you can convince the kid to go with you.”

“Not to mention convince his mom,” Nathan added.

“Yeah, well, she might not have a choice, if this is her son’s story,” Audrey said. “Bad things tend to happen to people who tell a hero not to accept his destiny. Especially his parents.” Nathan raised an eyebrow at her. “What? Just because I don’t read _good_ literature doesn’t mean I don’t read.”

“She’s not wrong,” Duke observed.

Nathan nodded. “Probably not the best way to phrase it when you’re talking to his mom, though.”

“Noted,” Audrey said with a wry smile. “Just let me take care of this one, okay?” She turned around. “Mrs. Morse? We need to talk to you and your son for a minute.”

She drew the two of them away from the crowd and the other officers, where they wouldn’t be overheard. “The good news is that we know where the missing kids are,” she told them. “But we can’t get to them without Shawn’s help.”

“I don’t understand,” Mrs. Morse said, her grip on her son tightening. “Where are they? Why do you need Shawn?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Audrey admitted. “Mrs. Morse... how much do you know about the Troubles?”

Now her eyes narrowed. “My son didn’t cause any of this,” she said coldly.

“Nobody’s saying he did,” Audrey said gently. “We don’t think _any_ of the missing kids actually caused this; they just stumbled into it. And Shawn may be the only one who can help them stumble back out of it.”

“Why him? What makes you think that whatever happened to the rest of them won’t happen to him?”

“For one thing, it hasn’t yet,” Audrey said. “He’s the only kid in the neighborhood who’s been to this park today and came back. And he’s the only one who came to an adult for help. We’ll be backing him up.” Which was true, even if it wasn’t the real reason that they needed him. In this instance, she didn’t think that trying to explain the fairy tale epidemic would change Mrs. Morse’s mind. Audrey bent down to address Shawn directly, not giving his mother time to respond. “I know I’m asking a lot from you,” she said gently. “But you could be a huge help to us, and to your brother and sister.”

Shawn eyed her somberly. “What would I have to do?”

“ _Nothing_ ,” his mother said firmly. “You don’t have to do anything.”

“Of course you don’t,” Audrey agreed. “I can’t make you do anything, and I’m not going to try. I just hope you’ll agree to do what I ask you to because you think it’s the right thing to do. I need you to climb over that wall with me, right where your brother and your sister went over it, and help me look for them. We think you might be the only one who can find them.”

Shawn’s eyes widened, and he shook his head sharply. “I can’t do that. Annabeth said I couldn’t come. She said we’d all get in trouble Mom found out she let me—” He cut himself off suddenly, clapping a hand over his mouth and looking up at his mother with apprehension.  
His mother gave him a shrewd look. “Let you _what_?”

“Let me tag along with them sometimes,” Shawn mumbled, barely audible. “Like when she and Rob climb trees and stuff.”

“‘And stuff,’” Mrs. Morse repeated, folding her arms and staring him down. When he didn’t respond, she sighed and shook her head. “We’re going to have a talk about this when all this is over,” she said severely. Shawn hung his head and nodded.

Mrs. Morse turned her attention back to Audrey. “As it seems that my youngest is already getting into trouble on his own, I suppose it would be pointless for me to try and forbid him from getting someone else _out_ of trouble. Assuming,” she added sharply, her eyes boring into Audrey, “that he’s going to be in the company of a responsible adult.”

“I won’t let him out of my sight,” Audrey promised, hoping she could keep it. “How about it?” she asked Shawn. “Your mom says it’s okay if you help us out. Will you do it?”

Slowly, uncertainly, Shawn edged away from his mother and came around to stand in front of Audrey. “Okay.”

“Thank you,” Audrey said, gently and sincerely. “It means a lot to me that you’re willing to help. And it’s going to mean a lot to all the other kids, once we find them.”

Duke nodded at their approach. “Kid’s on board for this?”

“Shawn has very generously agreed to help us,” Audrey said encouragingly, guiding the boy forward. “Isn’t that right, Shawn?”  
He hesitated, apparently taken aback by multiple adults looking at him like they expected something. “I just want Rob and Annabeth back,” he said quietly.

“We’re going to get them back,” Audrey promised, crouching down to look him in the eye. “We just need you to trust us and be brave, okay.” She squeezed his shoulder. “It’s going to be all right.”

“Stay in radio contact as long as you can,” Nathan cut in as she stood up. “And here.” He turned her around and caught hold of her back belt loop, attaching a heavy carabiner clip to it.

Audrey eyed the rope that was now trailing behind her. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to hook this up to Shawn?”

“If this is his story, he shouldn’t have any problems finding his way out of it. You might.” Nathan gave her a half smile. “And if there is a problem, I know you won’t leave without him.”

Audrey smiled back, as usual both heartened and humbled by his faith in her. “You ready for this?” she asked Shawn. He nodded firmly. “All right. I’m gonna go over the wall first, and then these two’ll boost you up so I can help you down on the other side, okay?”

“Parker.” Nathan’s voice stopped her as she reached for the wall again. “Be _careful_.”

She nodded. “I will. Now are you gonna help me up, or just stand there watching me?”

Getting up the wall was no trouble, and neither was pulling her entire body over to the other side. But as she prepared to drop to the ground, Audrey found it difficult to let go of the stones. If the space on the far side of the wall really was some kind of other world, she was hesitant about losing her last connection to the real one. “Nathan?”

“Yeah?”

“Just checking.” She wasn’t completely cut off, at least not yet. And there would still be the rope. Closing her eyes and forcing herself to breathe calmly, she let go and dropped to the ground.

It wasn’t a long drop; the wall was apparently the same height on this side as it had been on the other side. The ground was soft, covered as it was with moss and low creepers. There was no feeling of being disconnected, no sense that she’d crossed some kind of boundary. Not, she admitted to herself, that she’d know what that felt like.

Nathan’s voice crackled over her radio. “Parker? You okay?”

Well, that was working so far, at least. Audrey pulled the radio off her belt. “No surprises so far,” she told him. “Go ahead and send Shawn over.”

She could hear Duke grunt. “Up you go, kid.” It was quieter than it should be, even taking the muffling effects of the wall into account. A moment later Shawn’s head appeared, followed slowly and with great effort by the rest of his body. He paused at the top of the wall, staring out over the unexpected scene below in the same shock that Audrey had experienced. “No _way_.”

“I know,” she said. She held out her arms. “Just lower yourself as far as you can and the let go. I’ll catch you. Just like that,” she added, catching him around the middle as he loosed his grip and setting him gently on the ground. “There you go.”

Shawn studied their surroundings with wide eyes. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know,” Audrey admitted. “But it’s where all the other kids ended up, too. And that’s why I need your help to look for them.” She paused. “Well, actually, you’re looking for the softball your brother was chasing. But that’ll lead us to the other kids.”

“I don’t understand,” Shawn said.

Audrey didn’t blame him. “Think of it like a quest,” she said. “Your brother was looking for something and he couldn’t find it, so he’s trapped here. Your sister came in after him and didn’t find it either, so she got trapped. I’m guessing the same thing happened to the other kids who’ve gone missing today. So you have to find what you’re looking for so that they can _all_ come home.”

He gave her a skeptical look. “That sounds like a story.”

Honesty seemed the best response. “That’s exactly what it is,” Audrey said. “All those kids are stuck in a story. And you have to finish the story to help them.”

“And you too, right?” Shawn pressed. “You’re going to help me?”

“I can’t help you _look_ ,” Audrey said, making sure not to hesitate. She didn’t want him to know just how unsure she was of how much help she’d be if something actually happened. “It’s your quest; you have to find it. But I’m going to be right here with you, just in case.”

To her relief, he didn’t ask ‘in case _what_.’ He turned around to face the wall, closing his eyes. She could hear him mumbling to himself, tracking something invisible with his hands. “The park is back _there_ , and Rob was standing...” He turned around and opened his eyes. “We need to go that way,” he said, pointing.

“Great.” Audrey activated her radio. “We’re heading out,” she said. “You still reading me?”

“Loud and clear, Parker,” Nathan answered

“Good. Is Duke there?”

The background sounds suggested that he’d just pulled the radio out of Nathan’s hands. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“Got any last-minute advice?”

“Nothing I can think of at the moment.”

“Give me that.” Nathan’s voice was faint as he snatched the radio back. “Everything clear so far?”

“So far,” she told him. “I’ll keep you updated. And have Duke stay on the line; we might need him.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Duke assured her. She could _hear_ the smug look he was giving Nathan.

Ignoring their bickering with the kind of expertise that should have taken years to acquire, Audrey returned her entire attention to Shawn. He was standing still, his feet pointed in the direction he’d chosen and his upper body turned to face her. Waiting for her, she realized. “Go ahead,” she told him. “This is your quest; I’m just along for the ride.”

Shawn gave her a nod, his face set in determination, and turned his full attention to the ground in front of him. He walked slowly, sweeping aside the foliage in wide arcs and studying the ground for any clues. He flinched when the bushes started getting tall enough to block out most of the sunlight, but other than that he seemed totally engrossed in his search, ignoring the rest of his surroundings. In turn, Audrey’s attention was focused solely on Shawn. The statue that suddenly jutted out of the bushes startled them both.

The stone child looked like it was only meant to be a couple years older than Shawn, and Audrey was willing to bet that it hadn’t been here yesterday. “Shawn,” she said carefully, “does this look like anyone you know?”

Shawn, transfixed and pale, nodded. “That’s Brian Crane. He was supposed to meet us in the park. He never showed up.”

_Or he was there and gone before you arrived_ , Audrey thought. “Then that’s one of the missing kids accounted for,” she said aloud, as if this was something she’d expected.

“What _happened_ to him?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Audrey said. “And to fix. If you complete your quest, we can take care of everyone else.”

Shawn shook his head. “I don’t understand. How will that help them?”

“That’s just how it works,” Audrey said gently. “I wish I could give you a better answer, but that’s the only one we have now.”

Shawn gave in, his shoulders slumping in frustrated confusion. Making Audrey stand exactly where she was, he walked around the statue, giving it a wide berth as if the reaching hands might suddenly grab for him. He went around until the statue was directly between him and Audrey, ensuring that they’d still be walking in the same direction they had been before the detour.

As he was doing this, Audrey spoke into the radio in a low, quick voice, recapping the situation so far for Duke. “That _is_ how it works, right?” she asked. “We fix his problem, we fix everyone’s?”

Duke was silent for a long moment. “Well, you can’t rescue the other kids _without_ Shawn doing this first,” he said slowly. “I can’t make any promises about saving everyone else even with him. It might just reverse the curses on his family members, if that.”

“That’s not encouraging,” Audrey said, knowing it wasn’t Duke’s fault.

“It’s the best I can do,” Duke told her. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. We’ll figure the rest out as it comes.”

“A lot of your plans include that step, don’t they?”

“And nine times out of ten we figure out the rest.”

Audrey had to admit that that was true. “I’ll keep in touch,” she said, and headed out to follow Shawn past the statue.

He hadn’t gone far from it, and he was frozen in shock again, staring up at an old woman who was certainly not a statue. “And what do you think you’re doing back here?” she was demanding.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Audrey said. She held up her badge. “Haven P.D. We’re on the trail of a group of missing kids. Is this your property?”

She might as well not have existed for all the attention the woman paid to her. “Well?” she demanded of Shawn, her voice cold and sharp.

“I don’t think you heard me correctly,” Audrey said, just as authoritative. Shawn was turned to face her with a helpless look, relying on the grownup to take care of the situation. “Police. Missing kids. Identify yourself.”

The woman continued to ignore her. “Why do you keep looking behind you, boy?” she demanded of Shawn. “Don’t tell me you’ve brought a whole pack with you to trespass on my grounds.”

“No, ma’am,” Shawn managed. “It’s just us. Me,” he corrected, apparently having noticed the way the woman hadn’t acknowledged Audrey’s existence.

_Just like Duke’s squirrel_ , Audrey thought. “You’re on your own for this one,” she told Shawn apologetically. “Just explain why you’re here; she seems to be a part of it. And be polite,” she added, remembering Duke’s rules. Thinking of Duke, she held up the radio, hoping he’d be able to hear the conversation.

Shawn twisted his hands together nervously as he tried to nod to tell Audrey he understood. “My brother lost a softball over your wall,” he stumbled. “He came to get it, but he didn’t come back, and neither did my sister, so I came to look for them.” He hung his head, trying for a contrite look. “We weren’t trying to sneak in. Well, we _were_ ,” he amended, “but we didn’t think anyone lived here anymore so we couldn’t ask for permission.”

The old woman seemed to soften. “Well, you know better now, don’t you?” she asked. Shawn nodded emphatically. She gave a sigh. “I should have known you were with the other ones. They’ve been and gone, although I don’t think they found what they were looking for, nor do I know where they went.”

“Oh,” Shawn said softly. “I was hoping you could help me find them.”

“Don’t be absurd,” the woman said archly. She relented quickly, however. “If you wish, you may at least continue your search for your missing item. But take only that which is yours, do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Shawn mumbled. “I’m sorry we trespassed. I’ll try to be quick.”

“See that you do,” the woman said. She turned without a further word, lost within the dense foliage within seconds.

“You get any of that, Duke?” Audrey asked.

“Yeah,” came the response. “Sounds pretty standard. Just... tell the kid to be really careful about that ‘taking only that which is yours’ thing, all right? That’s not something you usually have to be told in a fairy tale unless it’s gonna bite you in the ass later.”

“Parker,” Nathan’s voice cut in, soft and sudden. “Has your rope snagged on anything?”

She felt for the clip on her belt loop, looking behind her and giving the rope an experimental tug. “I don’t think so. Why?”

“We’ve fed out enough rope to reach across the backyard at least twice,” Nathan told her. “I don’t know how much we have left.”

“Just keep it coming as far as you can,” Audrey told him. “We’ll worry about running out when we run out.” Privately, she had every intention of leaving the rope behind if she had to, rather than leaving Shawn to do this alone or making him come back without finishing his quest, but she knew better than to tell Nathan that until it was too late for him to try and argue. “Did you hear Duke?” she asked Shawn.

He nodded. “I’m not supposed to touch anything except my ball,” he said. He was already looking for it again, returning to his sweeping of the ground, but there was a new thoughtful look on his face. “Does that mean that I can’t help anyone else? Even if all the other kids from the neighborhood are back here, and I find what they’re looking for, I can’t bring it to them and fix them if they’re like Brian?”

“I don’t know,” Audrey admitted. “It sounds like it. But even if that’s true, we’ll find some other way to help the rest of them.”

Shawn sank into himself, his shoulders slumping, making himself look even smaller than he was. “Can I tell you something?” he asked.

“Sure you can,” Audrey said.

“I don’t want to tell anyone else.”

Audrey couldn’t quite smother a smile as she caught his meaning. “I’ll be right back, guys,” she said into the radio before switching it off over the start of a protesting squawk. “Nobody’s listening and I won’t tell,” she promised.

“I don’t want to do this,” Shawn confessed in a tiny voice. “It’s weird and creepy back here, and I don’t like it, and I don’t know why I have to be the one to fix everything. And I’m kind of scared,” he added, even more quietly.

Audrey didn’t blame him. “We could go back,” she said, trying not to sound as reluctant as she was to suggest it. She didn’t want to abandon the other missing kids, which she was growing more certain would be the outcome if Shawn left off now, but she also didn’t want to force the boy to continue if he was afraid.

Shawn shook his head. “I don’t want to go back,” he said, sounding like he was trying to convince himself. “There are people who need me, right? And it has to be me? No one else can help them?”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“Then I have to do it,” Shawn said. “It’s not fair. I don’t want to. But I don’t want them to not get helped. And if there’s something I can do and I don’t do it, then that would feel even worse than doing something scary and awful.” He looked up at Audrey. “Does that make sense?”

“You have no idea how much,” Audrey said quietly. They were all the same thoughts she’d been having ever since she’d found out about her own deadline. If they couldn’t find another solution before the meteor storm came, if she had to disappear... Could she really refuse to do it, given what she’d be sentencing the rest of the town to? “I wish I had a better answer for you,” she said, trying to let her own worries go for the moment. “It’s _not_ fair. But you’re right, sometimes doing something you don’t want to do is better than _not_ doing it, if it’s something you’re doing for someone else.” She gave him a gentle smile. “I’m not going to force you to keep going. But I think you want to, and if you do, I’m going to be right here with you.”

“I _don’t_ want to keep going,” Shawn corrected her. “But I don’t want to go back more than I don’t want to keep going.”

“I know how you feel. Come here.” Audrey swept the boy up in a quick hug. “You’re pretty brave, you know that?”

He gave her a little grin. “I guess I kinda am.”

She ruffled his hair, laughing lightly. “C’mon, tough guy,” she said. “Let’s find that ball so you can go home.”

*

However hard he concentrated, Nathan couldn’t hear anything from the other side of the wall. Audrey’s voice had faded out far more quickly than it should have, even taking into account the muffling effect of the foliage she’d have been walking through. Within moments of her disappearing from view the radio had become their only source of communication, and now she’d cut off even that.

_Be glad we’ve got that much_ , Duke had told him in an undertone when he picked up on Nathan’s worry. _She’s barely in this world anymore; the fact that we can pick up her radio at all is more than I expected_. Nathan had bridled at the fact that Duke hadn’t said anything when they were preparing to send her in, that he’d let her go knowing that they might lose communication and hadn’t said anything. _I didn’t have any kind of proof that it wouldn’t work_ , Duke had pointed out in that sharp voice that meant he thought he was being the rational one. _And it’s not like knowing that would have stopped her_.

The problem was that lately, when Duke thought he was being the rational one, he was usually right. There was a problem related to the Troubles, and Audrey thought she could solve it. Even before they’d ever heard about the Hunter meteor storm – _twenty-seven days_ , Nathan tried not to remind himself – she’d have thrown herself into the fray without a thought to her own safety, and now... Nathan shook his head. These days he didn’t know _what_ was going through her head, if he ever had in the first place. All he could do now was what he had always done, helping her deal with the Troubled and trying to keep her safe even when she forgot to keep herself safe. If there was anything more he could do, he just hoped she’d tell him before it was too late. For now, he would just have to stand out here with Duke, clinging to the radio and feeding out rope and waiting for her to come back to him.

But waiting was getting increasingly harder to do. Nathan didn’t know how long the silence had lasted when he finally decided it had been too long. “I’m going in,” he said, stepping away from the truck and heading for the wall.

Sudden resistance halted his progress with a jolt he almost felt. “No you’re not,” Duke said calmly, not relinquishing his grip on Nathan’s forearm.

Nathan gritted his teeth and clenched his fist. “She’s in there alone, and now we don’t have any way to contact her,” he said. He tried to pull his arm back, but Duke held firm.

“She’s also better equipped to deal with whatever’s going on in there than either of us,” Duke reminded him. “Think about it. She turned her radio off _willingly_ , and she told us before she did it. Nothing cut her off, and there’s nobody back there who could threaten her into cutting herself off. Whatever she’s doing, she’s got a plan. It might be an insane plan, but we owe it to her to at least give her a minute and see what she does next.”

“And in the meantime we just leave her to the wolves?”

“No wolves in this story,” Duke said, and Nathan wasn’t sure if he was being glib or if the situation had led him to take Nathan literally. He shook his head. “The whole point of her going back there was to take advantage of her immunity. There’s nothing there that can hurt her.”

“As far as we know,” Nathan countered.

Duke didn’t try to argue against that. “Hey, if we don’t hear from her in a minute or two I’m going right over that wall with you. I’m just saying, give her a chance before we take an unnecessary risk.”

Fury rose in Nathan’s chest. “‘Unnecessary risk’?” he repeated. “You give Audrey all that big talk, and suddenly you’re not willing to take a risk for her?”

“I’m not willing to risk _you_ , jackass!” Duke’s teeth were bared as he jerked Nathan’s arm, pulling him in closer and stunning him into silence. “I’m not going to let someone I care about put himself on the line for someone else I care about unless it’s absolutely necessary,” he continued, more softly now. “And even if I was going to, I wouldn’t let you do it alone. So just settle down and trust her for half a minute, and if something goes wrong we’ll both deal with it, okay?”

Nathan couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Duke so serious. Or the last time Duke had called him _someone I care about_. The words rang loud in his head. Not sure what to say – a voice in the back of his brain was saying he should say _something_ , but offering no suggestions as to what – he gave a short nod.

“Good,” Duke said in a calm tone that was somehow not calm at all, finally letting go of Nathan’s arm. Nathan realized for the first time that Duke’s other hand had never left the rope, his grip on it white-knuckled compared to the loose hold they’d both kept on it as they were feeding it out. However confident he’d been, he wasn’t going to let Audrey get any further away until they had contact with her again. He returned his attention to the silent radio, shooting a sideways look back at Nathan. “I don’t really want to think about what she’d do to me if I’d let you go after her,” he added lightly.

Nathan tried for something like a smile. He didn’t think he was successful. “I still don’t like just waiting for her,” he said.  
Duke spread his hands in a clear, ‘what are you gonna do?’ gesture. Nathan had to admit that the sentiment was accurate; it wasn’t like Audrey had given them much of a choice in the matter. “Come on,” he found himself murmuring as he hunched back over the radio with Duke, trying to bring her back by sheer force of will.

Maybe it worked. “Hey, guys, I’m back.”

Audrey’s voice vanished as quickly as it had reappeared, drowned out by Duke and Nathan’s overlapping shouts and admonitions and demands for an explanation. “It’s okay,” she finally managed to get out over the sound. “We’re here, we’re fine. I just had to cut out for a second.”

“ _Christ_ , Audrey!” Duke growled, giving voice enough to both their worry. He was practically bent double with relief, belying his earlier apparent unconcern.

“You all right, Parker?” Nathan added, managing to make himself sound at least a little calm now that Duke had summed up what they’d both wanted to say. He still couldn’t stop himself from scolding her a little, though, even after yet another assurance that she was fine and that they had almost completed their objective.

The hand that Duke held over his mouth muffled something that was probably not fit to be heard anyway. “I swear she’s turning my hair grey,” he muttered.

Nathan refrained from making a comment about Duke’s hair, which was currently hanging in his face and giving him a sheepdog look. _She’s worth it_ , he thought. It wasn’t until Duke mumbled an agreement that he realized he’d said it out loud.

*

Audrey switched her radio back on, wincing at the sudden burst of noise as Nathan and Duke tried to out-shout each other. “It’s okay,” she said, trying to talk over them. “We’re here, we’re fine. I just had to cut out for a second.”

“ _Christ_ , Audrey!” Duke snapped harshly.

“You all right, Parker?” Nathan was speaking more calmly, but his words were still gruff and clipped.

“Everything’s fine,” she assured them. “We just... needed a minute.”

“You know better than to cut off communication,” Nathan said pointedly.

“I know what I’m doing,” Audrey responded, equally firm now. “Now just let me do my job. I have a feeling we’re not going to be back here much longer.” There was a wordless sound of frustration in response – she wasn’t sure which one of them it came from – but she ignored it and turned her full attention back to Shawn.

It was like someone had been waiting for their cue. Once Shawn started searching again, it was less than two minutes before something white peeked through the moss. “That’s it,” Shawn said quietly, as if they were sneaking up on it. “That’s our ball.”

“You’re sure?” Audrey asked, remembering how adamant both the old woman and Duke had been about picking the right one.

“I’m sure,” Shawn told her. “Pretty sure, anyway.” He hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

He didn’t move for several seconds. “Are you going to pick it up?” Audrey found herself unconsciously speaking as quietly as he had.

“What if something happens?”

Audrey gave him a gentle look, reminding him of their earlier conversation. “What if you don’t pick it up, and nothing happens?”

She saw Shawn nod his understanding. Slowly, nervously, he reached out for the softball.

For a long moment, nothing did happen. Then, with a sound like a sigh, the trees and bushes around them drew back, leaving a wide clearing covered with nothing but soft moss. Audrey estimated that the clearing was about the same size that the entire backyard _should_ have covered, and it was filled with statues of children much like the one they had passed on their way here. In fact, if she looked closer she could see that one of them _was_ the one they’d passed earlier. A quick count told her that there were eight of them in all, the same number as there were missing kids. “Looks like we found them,” she said into her radio. “We’ll be making our way back as soon as we figure out how to bring them with us.” She took a look behind herself, hoping she’d be able to make a guess as to how far they’d gone, and nearly jumped out of her skin when she realized that the wall was now only a few yards away. The rope that was attached to her belt was still hanging over the top of it, and there was no extra slack between the wall and her. _Magic_ , she reminded herself.

Shawn wasn’t looking at their surroundings. He was focused on the softball in his hands, which had developed a faint glow. “Is that it?” he asked.

“It looks like we’re allowed to leave, at least,” Audrey said, indicating the wall.

Now Shawn looked up, brightening when he saw the statues. The happy look didn’t last very long, however, before his brow furrowed. “But what about them?”

Audrey was wondering the same thing, and she didn’t think she liked the answer. She crouched down next to Shawn, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know if there’s anything more we can do for them,” she said. “When that woman told you that you couldn’t take anything that wasn’t yours... I think this might be what she meant.”

Shawn scrunched up his forehead, biting his lip and looking intensely thoughtful. “But... they _are_ mine,” he said slowly. “Rob’s _my_ brother, and Annabeth is _my_ sister. And the rest of them are all _my_ friends. That has to count for something.”

“I don’t know if that’s how it works,” Audrey started to say, but the rising light around her cut her off. The statues were starting to glow, the same soft light that was emanating from the softball. “Or maybe it is.” She patted Shawn on the shoulder again, standing up. “I think that was a riddle. And I think you got the right answer.”

“I did?” Shawn asked. “Then why didn’t that fix them?”

“Maybe there’s something else you have to do,” Audrey said thoughtfully. “Can I see that?” She held her hand out for the ball. The glow coming from it dimmed when Shawn let go of it, but didn’t go out. It and the statues were obviously connected somehow.

The solution came to her suddenly, and she laughed. “We’re trying to get the other kids out of the yard, aren’t we?”

Shawn nodded slowly, not sure where she was going with this.

“Well, how else do you get someone _out_ with a softball?” Audrey asked, tossing it to him with a grin. “Tag ‘em.”

*

A sudden sound caught Nathan’s ear. He raised his head, holding up a hand to cut off Duke’s question so he could hear it better. It was coming from the other side of the wall, the first sound they’d heard since Audrey went over. Laughter. Children’s laughter, faint but growing louder. “Guys,” Audrey’s voice came over the radio, bright with triumph. “We’ve got the other kids. We’re coming back.”

The grin and quirked eyebrow that Duke shot at Nathan clearly said _what did I tell you?_ , as if he hadn’t been just as worried only a moment ago. “Great,” Nathan said, not bothering to hide his own relief. “Just follow the rope; we’ll guide you in.”

“No need,” Audrey told him. “The wall is right here. It wasn’t a minute ago, but it is now.” He gave Duke a questioning look; Duke just shrugged. “We could use some more hands to help all the kids over, though.”

They had already been making their way to the wall before she said it, Nathan narrowly beating Duke to the radio. “Okay, we’re standing under where you went in,” he told her.

“So am I,” she said, over the wall rather than over the speaker. “You can put the radio down; I can hear you fine now.” She continued to speak more faintly than Nathan could understand, apparently directing the kids.

A dark head appeared over the wall, followed by the rest of a girl in her mid-teens. She gave Duke and Nathan a wave and sat astride the wall. Nathan noticed that she was careful not to look directly at it; Audrey must have warned her. “You’re with Officer Parker?” she asked. When Duke nodded, she looked back at the other side of the wall for confirmation. “Okay. The bigger kids are going to hand up the little ones to me, and I’m going to hand them off to you, all right?”

There was barely time for Nathan to acknowledge this before she bent down over the far side of the wall and came up with a small, squirming child who was trying valiantly to pull himself over the wall on his own. How he had gotten over in the first place, Nathan couldn’t imagine. He reached out for the kid, catching him as carefully as he could and setting him on the ground. “You all right?”

The boy just stared up at him with wide eyes, trying to pull away from his grip without any apparent direction in mind. Nathan looked to Duke for help, but Duke already had his hands full with the second child, a girl of similar size to the first one who was clinging to him like a lifeline. He also seemed to have recognized the problem, that they were about to be outnumbered by lost and confused children. “Hey,” Duke said loudly, drawing the attention of one of the officers keeping the crowds back, “you think a couple of you can corral the squirts until we can get a head count?”

The officer at least looked to Nathan for confirmation before pulling another of his fellows away to help. “But we searched the backyard,” he said as he bent down and took the boy’s hand; the child seemed less nervous in the presence of a uniform. “Where are they coming from?”

“Not your fault you didn’t find them,” Nathan said, but didn’t bother elaborating. He would explain later, or come up with a plausible explanation. Right now, there was another kid who needed help getting to the ground.

Fortunately, the third child was the last of the incredibly young ones. The others only needed a boost and a hand to guide them to the ground, if that. Shawn was the last of these mid-sized children, jumping down with a confidence that made him look like a completely different child than the one they had sent off just a short while ago. Following him was an older boy, probably the same age as the girl who’d been sitting on the wall and looking so like Shawn that he had to be the missing brother. He made a show of pulling himself up alongside the girl, making an effort to make it look effortless and subtly – well, he probably _thought_ it was subtly – checking to see if she was impressed. Whether or not she was Nathan couldn’t tell, nor did he particularly care. He was more focused on the knowledge that there was one more person they were waiting for.

As if in response to his thoughts, the two teens ducked down to the other side of the wall one more time, coming up with Audrey between them. Nathan rushed forward to offer her help that he didn’t think she really needed, catching her by the waist to make sure she landed lightly. “These are the worst possible shoes I could have picked for today,” she complained with a laugh.

“Is that all of them?” Duke asked, extricating himself from the knot of kids.

“All the missing kids, and the hero of the hour,” Audrey said, giving Shawn a proud pat on the head. “This one’s a pretty sharp kid.” He grinned and ducked his head.

She gave him a gentle push towards his siblings, who were acting equally impressed, and filled Duke and Nathan in on what had happened after they found the softball and the statues. “I talked to all the other kids,” she told them. “They all had the same thing happen to them: They went into the backyard after something they’d lost over the wall, mostly one at a time but a couple in groups. They met the same old woman Shawn and I saw, and got frozen in place when they tried to pick up something that wasn’t what they were looking for. Fortunately none of them seem to remember anything between getting turned to stone and Shawn waking them up. They’re all fine, as far as I can tell; there’s no reason not to release them all to their parents.”

“Good thing,” Duke said, eyeing the restless crowd that the officers were still keeping at a distance. “I don’t know how much longer they’re going to wait patiently if you’ve got their kids.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Audrey said. “I want to talk to Shawn’s mom, anyway. Seems like she could use someone telling her that her youngest is tougher than he looks.”

Nathan stepped aside, allowing her to pass. “Hang on, Parker,” he said suddenly as she began to walk away. He caught her by the waistband, unhooking the rope that was still clipped to her belt. He had to admit that some part of him was tempted to leave it on her, to have a way to keep track of her during her daily wanderings into God only knew what kind of dangerous situations.

Duke was already starting to pull in the slack on the rope, looping it into neat coils on the roof of Nathan’s truck. It was more rope than there should have been for how close to the wall Audrey had apparently been. He had the same thoughtful look he’d worn while he was listening to Audrey over the radio. As Nathan approached him he tilted his head, drawing his attention. “You still thinking the library might have some information?” he asked.

Nathan fell into place beside him, helping him with the rope. “Not with the way the head librarian stonewalled me,” he said.

“It’s not like she’s the only employee they’ve got,” Duke pointed out. “And there might be another one who’s more willing to give you a hand.”

Nathan raised an eyebrow. “What are you getting at?”

Duke sighed, lowering his voice even further. “Look, I don’t know anything for sure. But I _do_ know that Doreen at the circulation desk has been giving me weird looks the last few times I’ve been in there, and I don’t think she’s judging my tastes in reading material.” A pointed look at Nathan’s inner arm. “I’m thinking someone warned her about getting too friendly with a Crocker.”

The irony in his voice was palpable. Nathan gave a short nod, trying to push away the sudden feeling of guilt. “Good to know, thanks,” he said, focusing on the rope coming over the wall to keep from looking at Duke. The last of it finally came over, the curve of it falling to the ground. There was a faint popping sound, like a cork coming loose. Nathan blinked. That wasn’t the sound he’d expected. “Did you hear that?”

Duke’s questioning look said that he hadn’t. Suspicion starting to build in him, Nathan returned to the wall, digging his feet in and pulling himself up to look over. The backyard was visible now, the same tangle of dead plants that they’d wandered through when they opened the gate. It looked like they’d broken the last connection between the wall and whatever had set up shop on the other side. Just to confirm this theory, Nathan hopped all the way over the wall, coming down with a loud crack of crumbling foliage. Yes, there was the gate with its broken lock, and when he went through it he found himself back outside the yard, facing a startled Duke who looked like he’d been seconds away from jumping over the wall after Nathan. “It’s gone,” he said. “Whatever other place this was connected to, it’s not there now.”

Duke relaxed. “Makes sense, I guess,” he said. “The story’s over.” He looked at the quickly-dispersing crowd of families behind them, parents leading their kids away, alternately hugging and scolding them. “And they all lived happily ever after.”

*

Duke was out of the car the second they pulled up to the station, barely sparing a wave for Audrey as he headed for his own vehicle. “I’ve got a business to run. You know where to find me if you need me.”

“What was that about?” Audrey wondered, swiveling in her seat to watch him walk away.

“Probably doesn’t trust his staff not to offend a fairy disguised as a weary traveler,” Nathan said, sounding only a little sarcastic. He jutted his chin towards the front of the building, where Dwight was standing just outside the door. “And he probably figures we’ve got all the backup we need for right now.” A pause. “Or he’s just avoiding Dwight.”

“Things do seem to get more complicated for him when Dwight shows up,” Audrey had to agree.

“Hey,” Dwight said as they approached him. “They told me you guys were looking into some missing kids? Anything I can do?”

“It’s all taken care of,” Audrey assured him. She gave him a quick rundown of the situation, and of all the other incidents that had happened over the last two days.

Dwight nodded. “Fairy tales, huh?” he repeated, sounding unsurprised. “That explains some things. The guy I just brought in? He says a witch tried to kill him. Only backed off when he told her his wife was pregnant, but then she threatened to come back and take the baby once it’s born.”

“Did you get a description from him?” Audrey asked, thinking of the old woman she and Shawn had encountered and wondering if this witch was another creation of this Trouble.

“Nothing concrete,” Dwight said. “Not from him, and not from any of the witnesses, who tell the story differently.” Audrey raised an eyebrow. “According to the neighborhood watch who reported him, they saw a man and a woman having an argument in their community garden, after which the woman vanished and the man made off with a load of someone else’s vegetables. I asked him about that, and he just said it was all for his wife and wouldn’t say anything more.”

“A pregnant wife, and a witch in a garden,” Audrey said. It sounded like something out of a fairy tale, but she couldn’t make the pieces line up in her head. “Ring a bell?” she asked Nathan.

“That’s how _Rapunzel_ starts,” Dwight said, sounding a little surprised that he had to explain it. “I had a daughter,” he reminded them when Audrey gave him a questioning look.

“Right,” Audrey said quietly, always unsure of how to proceed when that subject came up.

“We need some information you might have,” Nathan cut in, much to Audrey’s relief. “We think someone at the library might know more about what’s going on, and Duke thinks one of the staff members might be a member of the Guard. Doreen Hanscombe. Do you know her?”

“Well enough to know that flashing your ink isn’t going to get you anywhere with her,” Dwight said, giving Nathan a wry eye. “I’m not the only one who’s walked away from the Guard.”

“But you know she’s Troubled?” Audrey asked.

“I don’t know the details; she never said. But yeah, she is.” Dwight looked at Audrey thoughtfully. “She talked about you a lot,” he said. “She liked you, said you did more for the Troubled than anyone else. She’d probably tell you anything, if she thought it would help you help someone else.”

“Okay,” Audrey said. “I’ll get Doreen’s contact information and look her up. Nathan, you deal with our Rapunzel guy.” She wasn’t expecting him to have any information, given the way this investigation was going so far, but it was never a good idea to leave a lead unfollowed. Nathan nodded his agreement.

“You need me for anything?” Dwight asked.

“Not at the moment,” Audrey told him. “Just keep your ears open, let us know if there’s anything else going on. And if you _do_ find something you can step in on...”

“I’ll be right on it,” he assured her. “I know how to do my job.”

*

The afternoon had already been slipping away when Audrey set off to find Doreen; after an interview and a cup of tea with her evening had officially set in. Audrey returned to her car with the intent of going straight home, but not without contacting Nathan first.

He picked up on the first ring. “What have you got, Parker?”

“Caroline Harper,” she announced. “Director of children’s programming at the Haven Public Library. She’s been hosting a weekly story hour for months, but had to put it on indefinite hold a few weeks ago while she recovers from injuries sustained in a house fire. Three guesses as to what she was reading to the kids.”

“Fairy tales,” Nathan said without surprise. “Does Doreen know if she’s Troubled?”

“Caroline never mentioned it.”

“She might not have known,” Nathan suggested. “If she is, odds are the fire triggered it.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” Audrey said. “And if she’s not our Troubled person, it’s too much of a coincidence for her not to be connected to whoever is.”

“Sounds like it,” Nathan said. “I’ll look her up, see if there’s anything on her.”

“I’ve already got her contact information,” Audrey told him. Dwight hadn’t been kidding about how willing Doreen would be to talk to her. She read off the two phone numbers and the address Doreen had given her. “No answer either at home or on her cell phone so far,” she added.

Nathan exhaled wearily. “I can send someone by her house first thing in the morning, but if it’s gonna turn into a manhunt there’s not much else we can do tonight. You should probably just head home and get some sleep, Parker.”

“I was going to tell you to do the same,” she said with a smile. “Even the Chief of Police needs a couple hours a night.”

“I’ve got some paperwork to finish up here,” he said, and she could hear an answering smile in his voice. “But I’ll be heading out pretty soon. See you in the morning?”

“Of course. Good night, Nathan.”

“’Night, Parker.”

Audrey hung up the phone and let out a quiet sigh. She’d done it again. The tenderness that tended to seep into her voice when she talked to Nathan was something she couldn’t train herself out of, and she could tell from the way he’d matched it that he could hear it. She shouldn’t be encouraging him, shouldn’t be encouraging _herself_. It didn’t matter how difficult it was, she had to put more distance between them. The thought of what might happen to him if she didn’t was more than she wanted to think about.

The brightness of the Gull as she pulled up helped lift her out of those distressing thoughts. The usual Saturday night party atmosphere was in full swing, and though she might complain sometimes on nights when she was having a hard time tuning out the noise and getting to sleep, she had grown accustomed to it quickly. It was how she knew she was home, just as much as the sound of her wind chimes or the particular smell of the water outside her windows.

The people had become part of home, too. There were regulars, ones who gave her a nod as she wove through the room and ones who ducked their heads to avoid making eye contact with a cop. The waitresses all had a smile to spare for her – some more genuine than others; she suspected that most of them were just concerned with making a good impression on someone who might have the boss’s ear – and one of them gave a toss of her head to indicate the table that Duke was currently attending to.

“On the house, my good woman,” she heard him saying to the table’s elderly occupant, giving her arm a pleasant pat as he set down a loaded plate. Audrey covered a grin; apparently Nathan’s suspicion as to why he’d been so quick to get back to work had been accurate.

He caught her look. “Not a word,” he said in a low voice as he led her out to a corner of the patio where they could talk in relative privacy.

“I didn’t say anything,” she returned innocently. “I’m just imagining how different this place is going to look if word gets out that you’re charming little old ladies.”

He shot her a ‘very funny’ look, but followed it with a resigned shrug. “I can afford a little charity,” he said. “And there’s not a lot that’ll get you in more trouble in a fairy tale than giving less than you can afford to. I’d rather take a loss for a night or two than get turned into a beast or something. Besides,” he added, leaning in on her with his best grin, “The little old ladies in this town already _know_ I’m charming.”

“As do the women of every other age group,” Audrey teased back. The little warning bell in the back of her head that had started going off when she was talking to Nathan was ringing again. She was getting flirty again, letting herself get too close to someone she cared about and possibly putting him in danger. But this was _Duke_ , who had an easy smile and a flirtatious word for everyone who wasn’t trying to kill or arrest him, and who still sometimes managed it even then. He cared about her, she had no doubts about that, but the way he played with her was the way he played with everyone. He wasn’t looking to fall in love with her, wasn’t looking for her to fall in love with him. He was keeping his distance enough for the both of them.

“You staying for a drink?”

Which didn’t mean she shouldn’t exercise at least a _little_ caution. “Probably shouldn’t,” she said apologetically. “Looks like it’s going to be another long day tomorrow. I just wanted to tell you that it looks like your tip about the librarian was a solid one. She gave us a lead that sounds promising. You know anything about Caroline Harper? She’s another staff member at the library.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” he said. “I mean, I’ve probably seen her around, but she must not have stood out.”

Audrey gave him a speculative look. She didn’t want to pry, especially with the way that Nathan had implied that it was a sore subject, but she couldn’t help wondering. And if the library was connected to all this, and Duke was connected to it somehow, it was probably something they should know about. “You seem awfully familiar with the library,” she said carefully.

“And I don’t seem like the intellectual type?” he asked. There was a touch of irony in the words, but no apparent offense. He adjusted his lean on the wall, turning slightly away from her and looking out into the distance with a little shrug. “I like books,” he said. “I liked ‘em when I was a kid and looking for an escape, and I liked ‘em when I finally got out of this town for the first time and discovered that the best way to travel involved a _lot_ of solitary down time. There’s a whole lot more occupying my time these days,” he added with a wry smile, “but I still like to have something to read on hand.”

“I know what you mean,” Audrey said. “Especially the part about being busy lately.” She shook her head. “But fairy tales? I still can’t quite wrap my head around that.” 

“It’s a whole genre where the winners are the people who figure out what the rules are and how to get around them,” he pointed out. “And where the ‘true’ version is going to change a little bit every time depending on who’s telling it and why, but everyone agrees that it’s basically the same story. What part of that _wouldn’t_ I like?” 

“Well, when you put it like _that_ ,” Audrey said with a laugh. She hesitated, then gave a little sigh and decided there was nothing for it but diving right in. “Look, is there anything else I should know about all this?”

Duke’s look was uncomprehending. “I have a couple bucks in late fees that I keep forgetting to pay, but...” He shook his head. “Not sure what you’re getting at.”

“Something Nathan said,” Audrey told him, and his expression was instantly guarded. “He told me that you used to spend a lot of time there when you were a kid, and then he acted like it was something he shouldn’t have said and told me not to bring it up with you.”

“And so you brought it up with me,” Duke said, not sounding angry or annoyed. He sounded like he was only partially paying attention to her, actually. “He really said that?”

“Yeah,” she said apologetically. “I don’t want to dredge up anything unpleasant, but if you’ve got some kind of connection that might end up being relevant to the situation...”

He waved her concern away. “You’re not dredging anything up. It’s just... so that’s where he draws the line.” He shook his head with a little laugh, sounding pleasantly surprised.

Audrey tilted her head, trying to follow this unexpected turn. “What am I missing?”

“The fact that there’s apparently one thing in my checkered history that Nathan doesn’t consider fair game,” Duke told her. “The part where he knows _why_ I spent so much time there. I was a runaway,” he reminded her, and at the memory of the kid he’d been paying under the table at the Gull a few months ago Audrey suddenly suspected she knew where this story was going. “Spent a good chunk of my teens holed up in whatever hiding place I could find. A heated building where you don’t have to pay anything to get in and they won’t kick you out unless you cause trouble was a _paradise_.” He shook his head. “I guess Nathan thinks it’s a time I’d rather not be reminded of, and for once it’s something he doesn’t blame me for.”

“I’m sorry,” Audrey said quietly.

“I didn’t say he was _right_ , did I?” Duke returned. “Look, it’s honestly not a big deal. It happened, I survived it, it’s over now. I’m just surprised Nathan even remembers it, let alone still cares.” Another shake of his head, with a faint laugh and half a smile. “I used to see him around sometimes, before I really finally got out of town. I lost track of how many times he asked if there was something he could do to help me. He was actually _worried_ about me back then.”

Audrey gave him a speculative look. “It sounds to me like maybe he still is.”

*

Nathan’s footsteps echoed off the stone walls of the castle. He was alone in the vast hallways, wandering and searching. There was someone here who needed to be found, who was calling out for him in a silent and unknown voice.

“ _Why are you here?_ ” This was a different voice than the one that had been calling him, a whisper that sounded like several voices together, rising from the walls and swirling around the columns and tapestries of the endless corridors. It sounded curious, confused.

“I’m looking for someone,” Nathan said.

“ _Who?_ ”

Nathan hesitated. It wasn’t a question he’d really asked himself. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But someone. Someone who needs me.” He strained, listening for the voice that wasn’t a voice, trying to figure out what it was telling him. “And... I think... someone I might need.” He didn’t understand that, but suddenly it seemed true. He had to find whoever it was for his sake as much as for theirs.

The whispers made a sound like quiet, gentle laughter. “ _If you don’t know who you’re looking for, how do you know you’re looking at all? How do you know it’s not someone you’ve already found?_ ”

It was a ridiculous question. “I’d know if I’d found someone. Why would I be looking otherwise?”

“ _Perhaps you’ve been looking in the wrong place, or just the wrong way_.”

“I don’t understand,” Nathan said, and a gentle, wispy laugh wound its way around the hallway. He was getting closer to the other voice now, though how he knew that when he couldn’t actually hear it he had no idea. “What am I supposed to do?”

“ _Seek what you need to seek. Find what you need to find. And know how to recognize it when you do. This is all we can tell you_.” The whispers slid away from him, rushing away in a soft wind that carried them in the opposite direction of the silent voice.

“Wait!” Nathan shouted. “I need to know more!” He broke into a run, chasing after the whispers, the other voice growing fainter behind him. If he got too far away, he might lose track of it again. But if he couldn’t get the whispers to tell him more, he didn’t know what he could expect to find. Chase down the answer, or walk into the unknown. He froze, looking back and forth between the two sides of the endless hallway. He didn’t know what to do, only that he had to do _something_. The whispers were fading away, and the other voice was still reaching out for him, straining, beeping, trilling...

_Ringing_. The sound of his phone finally broke through the fog of sleep, pulling him to the surface. Nathan groaned as he looked at the clock. He groaned again as he picked his phone up and looked at the caller ID. “It’s almost three AM, Duke. What do you want?”

“— _open door, count your blessings to find what you look for! Turn my sorrow into_ —” 

Nathan jerked the phone away from his ear. Whatever bits of sleep he was still clinging to were ripped away by the cacophony of Duke reaching – _loudly_ – for notes his vocal cords were never meant to hit. “What the hell is _wrong_ with you?” Nathan growled. The last thing he needed was some kind of karaoke drunk-dial.

The singing stopped abruptly. “You finally picked up,” Duke said as if nothing strange had happened. His voice was still slightly too loud. “I was starting to think I’d have to come up with a plan B.”

Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t want to ask. He really didn’t. “Plan B for _what_?”

“Trying to keep my head on straight and block out the noise,” Duke said. “I’ve got a whole pack of sirens outside. I can barely hear myself think.”

Nathan stared at the phone. This had been less ridiculous when he’d thought Duke was drunk. “Just because I’m the chief of police doesn’t mean that I can order my officers not to go after criminals in your neighborhood because it might keep you awake,” he snapped.

A moment of silent confusion, followed by a sigh. “ _Sirens_ , Nathan. The Little Mermaid and all her sisters, out in the harbor singing sailors to their deaths.”

It took Nathan a moment to wrap his head around that one. “Literally?” he finally asked, dreading the answer. Already he was rolling out of bed, preparing to head out to the harbor to start in on the damage control.

“Not yet, as far as I can tell,” Duke said. “Pretty sure I’m the only one in earshot who’s awake to hear it, and any other time of day the harbor would be too loud for them to break through. I already texted Beattie; told her to wear earplugs on the drive up and get this place as loud as possible the minute she gets in.”

“Okay,” Nathan said, relieved that Duke had already thought this one through. Beattie would be a valuable ally in this situation; not only would she do anything to help contain the Troubles, a few offhand remarks from both of them had led Nathan to suspect that she’d do anything Duke asked her to. “I can see if I can get a couple squad cars out there to make some noise in the interim,” he added, thinking of his earlier confusion.

“Fight sirens with sirens?” Duke said, sounding skeptical. “You think you can get enough volume to drown out something coming in over the water, and not just wake anyone in the area up and make them susceptible?”

“You don’t seem to be having any problems resisting,” Nathan pointed out.

“Yeah, because I know there’s something I need to resist. Why do you think I called you? You’re helping me block them out.”

“Me and Adele?” Nathan couldn’t resist asking.

“I was already slipping when I figured out what was happening,” Duke snapped defensively. “That song is on every station at least fifteen times a day. It was the first thing to pop into my head.”

“Okay,” Nathan said, holding his hands up, as if Duke could see him. He was pretty sure Duke would know he was doing it anyway, the same way he knew just by the tone in Duke’s voice that he was in his kitchen, leaning against the bar and probably pressing his free hand to his temples. A small voice in the back of his head pointed out that if Duke hadn’t just been trying to wind Audrey up (or trying to wind _him_ up) on the subject of his usual sleeping attire then there was a good chance he was also naked. This was not a thought Nathan chose to dwell on. “What do you want me to do?”

“There’s a loaded question,” Duke muttered, not quite far enough under his breath. At a more normal volume, he said, “just talk to me. Keep me talking. I know I’ve got some earplugs somewhere, and I should be fine if I can find them, but I don’t know how long I can stay focused on looking for them without zoning out. I need someone to drag me back if I do.”

There was an edge to his voice that told Nathan he wasn’t exaggerating. He sounded like he was having difficulty holding himself together, and it was freaking Nathan out a little bit. “You need to get out of there,” he said.

“Already tried leaving,” Duke said grimly. “It’s louder above deck.”

_Really_ starting to worry Nathan now. It wasn’t that he thought Duke was fearless, or unshakeable in his self-confidence, but he _was_ the best bluffer Nathan had ever met. If he actually _sounded_ scared and unsure of himself, something was _really_ wrong. “I have ear protection,” he said. “If you need someone to come get you...?”

The silence on the other end lasted long enough that Nathan was worried he might have lost him. “Duke?”

“That’s...really not necessary.” Duke sounded stunned, suggesting that the prior silence had been because he had been temporarily struck dumb. Nathan hunched his shoulders, feeling like an idiot for having made the offer. Duke coughed sheepishly. “Appreciated, but not necessary,” he added in a quick, awkward mutter.

“No problem,” Nathan said, equally quick and awkward, straightening up. He hadn’t meant to overstep some kind of line, if indeed he had. Maybe it had been an unexpected offer, but for the level of trouble Duke seemed to be in, it didn’t seem like too much. He echoed Duke’s cough, trying to break the uneasy silence that had suddenly descended. “Don’t you have some earplugs to be looking for?”

“See? You’re keeping me focused already.” The usual bravado was back in Duke’s voice as if it had never left.

“I don’t know how much help I’m going to be,” Nathan said, not trying to let his relief at the change in Duke’s attitude show too much. “Seems like our usual pattern is me yelling at you about something and you going out of your way to do the exact opposite of everything I say.”

“Good thing I didn’t ask you to yell at me, then,” Duke said. In the background, Nathan could hear faint rustling and rattling as he dug through a drawer or cupboard. “I was hoping for more of a conversation. You remember how those work, right?”

“I think I can manage.” Nathan finally gave up and got out of bed. He was fully awake now, well beyond the point where he could expect to just hang up the phone and drift back to sleep once they were done talking. He opened the window, listening to the quiet outside and enjoying the smell of the night wind, imagining he could feel it against his face. For a moment he hesitated, remembering that this window faced the harbor, the wind coming in from the same direction. Not that he _really_ expected whatever Duke was hearing to carry this far inland, but then again it _was_ some kind of magic.

No sound, even if he listened closely, which he knew he shouldn’t be doing under the circumstances. But he was _curious_ now. What did a song that could lure you to your death even sound like? Part of him wanted to ask Duke, although he knew it would probably be a bad idea when the goal was keeping Duke’s mind _off_ the literal siren song. Maybe he’d ask later, when the threat had passed. There was one thing he thought he should ask about now, though. “Can I ask you something?”

“Hey, whatever keeps me talking,” Duke said. “I’d say ‘ask me anything,’ but I don’t want to know how much advantage you’d take of that. And I’d like to point out that I’m not under oath and this conversation is strictly off the record.”

“Not gonna try extracting a confession from you without at least two witnesses and a tape recorder,” Nathan said, only half joking. “Do you know any fairy tales that involve dreams?” The endless hallway and the two voices calling for him were still churning in his head, far more vividly than his dreams usually did.

“Tons of ‘em,” Duke said. Nathan thought that might be disdain in his voice. “There are all kinds of stories where someone has a dream and wakes up just _knowing_ what they’re supposed to do next, or that something’s not really what it seems. And of course in a fairy tale everything someone tells you in a dream is true.”

_Definitely_ disdain, and a level of it that made Nathan smile despite his sudden misgivings. ‘Something is not what it seems’ had definitely been what his dream was driving at, but it hadn’t actually given him any answers or really told him how to find them. “You have strong opinions about this.”

“Because it’s _stupid_ ,” Duke said. “I mean, yeah, fairy tales, it’s not like I’m expecting high literature and intricate storytelling. But you can’t have people knowing things _just because_. It’s a copout so you don’t have to come up with a real answer.” A snort. “Not that it wouldn’t come in handy right about now,” he added. “Why, you having fairy tale dreams?”

“No,” Nathan said, telling himself it was only half a lie. Sure, it was even more obvious now that there was something weird going on about that dream, but the spirit of the question had been whether or not he’d had a dream that might actually tell them something about the current situation. By that meaning, the answer was a definite no. And the more he thought about the dream, the more certain he was that he wasn’t comfortable telling Duke about it if he didn’t have to. “I mean, I had some kind of dream,” he said. “One of the ones where you wake up and you feel like someone told you something _really_ important, but now that you’re awake you can’t remember it.” Okay, that was a whole lie.

“Another reason I hate fairy tale dreams,” Duke said. “Real dreams don’t ever tell you anything useful, they just make you think they did.”  
Nathan made a noncommittal sound. Now that he knew Duke probably wouldn’t have any answers for him – at least, not with the information Nathan was willing to give him – he wanted to get off the subject as quickly as possible. “What’s the deal with you _knowing_ all this stuff?” he asked, hoping that the deflection would be enough to keep Duke from asking more questions.

A quiet groan. “Not you too,” Duke muttered. “Why do I suddenly have to justify how I spend my free time to everyone? Yes, I read. It’s not a big deal, and it’s not even something you didn’t already know. Or so Audrey tells me,” he added pointedly.

Nathan’s heart sank. He’d _told_ her not to say anything. “You talked to Audrey?”

“Set her straight, is more like it. You had her convinced that there was some dark and terrible secret about me and the library.”

“I didn’t mean to tell her anything,” Nathan said. “And when I did, the details didn’t seem relevant.”

“You sure had _her_ thinking they might be relevant,” Duke told him. “She thought I might be connected to this Trouble somehow.”

Of course she had. Nathan should have known Audrey’s mind would work that way. “I’m sorry,” he stumbled. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

There was a sigh. “And that’s the part I don’t get,” Duke said quietly. The sounds of his rummaging stopped, like he was suspending the search to focus on this conversation. “You’re willing to tell Audrey every sordid detail you can find about me, no matter how old it is or how little it matters. Which, hey, maybe that’s just how cops make friends, I don’t know. It’s just what you do, and I’ve accepted that. What I don’t get is why my being on my own is somehow off-limits. It’s not like it’s even something she didn’t know already.”

Nathan hadn’t realized that Audrey already knew about the situation, although he probably should have. He didn’t think it would have changed his reaction if he had. ‘On my own’ Duke said, so casually, like it was something he’d _chosen_ , like he hadn’t been abandoned. Nathan still had vivid memories of watching his loudmouthed idiot friend slowly get paler, thinner, quieter, turning from a constant and strangely comforting thorn in Nathan’s side to a ghost. “It wasn’t something that needed to be brought up,” he said. “I’m not going to crucify you for something that wasn’t your fault.”

“Like being born a Crocker?” There was a quiet wound in Duke’s voice, the same rawness there had been when he’d been dying of old age and had asked Nathan if he hated him.

Nathan hadn’t known how to answer then, and he didn’t know how to answer now. “You were just a kid,” he said instead. “What happened to you... it shouldn’t have happened. Someone should have done something.”

The slow breath that Duke let out was a sound of sudden comprehension. “ _You_ should have done something, you mean.”

“I knew you were in over your head,” Nathan said quietly. He’d managed not to think about this for a long time, to ignore the whispers of guilt that had been so relentless at the time. “I should have helped.”

“By doing what, exactly?”

“I don’t know, but there must have been _something_ I could have done.”

“ _Jesus_ , Nathan.” Duke breathed out a gentle, exasperated laugh. Again his voice made him easy to picture, resting against a doorjamb and shaking his head, his hand to his face. “You’re insane. You’re completely insane.”

“I tried, okay?” Nathan snapped. He was trying to apologize, for God’s sake. Not doing a very good job, but he still felt like he deserved more consideration than that. “I tried to help you, but I didn’t know what to do!”

“Because we’re the same damn age!” The laugh was incredulous now, hysterical. “God, you idiot, you were just as much a kid as I was. There was nothing you could have done, and I probably would have been too proud and stupid to let you if there was.”

It was similar to what Nathan had tried to tell himself from time to time. Coming from Duke, it almost sounded true. “I still should have tried,” he mumbled.

“You did. Or have you forgotten all the time I spent telling you to back off and stop worrying about me? You were a complete pain in my ass, and I never even thanked you for it.”

Nathan tried to follow the logic of that sentence. “For _what_?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?” When it became obvious that he did, Duke sighed. “For _caring_ ,” he said quietly. “Sometimes you were the only person who did.” The words were coming out with difficulty, like he was pulling them from a long way away. _Twenty years away_ , Nathan thought. “Just... knowing that whatever happened to me mattered to _someone_... that was important. I’m not gonna say you saved my life, but you did make it a little easier to keep going sometimes.”

“Oh,” Nathan said. It was all that would come out.

“Yeah.” There was a barking cough, and Duke sounded like himself again. “So whatever stupid guilt complex you’re dragging around, just let it go, okay? You’re a good person, you did what you could, and it helped. I give you official permission to go back to acting morally superior to me.”

Nathan was still too stunned by the direction this conversation had taken to respond to the jibe. Being reminded of how much he’d once cared about Duke still gave him pause, a little jolt that threw him off balance. He’d thought he would be immune to that by now. Maybe he was. Maybe it was the realization that he’d meant something to _Duke_ , enough that Duke was still holding onto that all this time later, that was getting to him this time. _You were my best friend_ , he wanted to say. _What the hell happened to us?_ But he thought he already knew the answer. Time, and distance, and both of them turning into the people that everyone else had assumed they would. He’d learned to ignore the little pangs of _I wish something had turned out differently_ , but now they struck him in full force.

“You still there?” There was a certain amount of irony in Duke’s voice. “I thought I was the only one in danger of drifting off tonight.”

“Yeah, I’m good,” Nathan said quickly. The same weird cough that had plagued Duke a moment ago had migrated to him. “I’m good,” he repeated.

“Okay,” Duke said, and Nathan could hear him pulling himself out of whatever they’d landed themselves in. “Found ‘em,” he added a couple seconds later, rattling a box near the phone. “Maybe now we can both get some sleep.”

Nathan decided not to question the timing of this. “Good,” he said. “We’re gonna need it.”

“I’m getting that impression, yeah,” Duke said. A hesitation. “And Nathan? This conversation...”

“Never happened,” Nathan finished for him, relieved.

“Good to know we’re on the same page,” Duke said. “See you in the morning.”

Nathan hung up the phone, intending to crawl back into bed and try to get a few more hours of sleep before he had to wake up officially. Instead, he continued to sit by the open window, staring off into the distance and thinking. It was a long time before he finally managed to pry himself away, and longer still before he got back to sleep.


	4. The Thorn In Your Side

Duke woke up groggy and disoriented due to the lack of sleep and the lack of the morning sounds he was used to, the earplugs having proven even more effective than he’d expected, but he didn’t wake up at the bottom of the harbor. Overall, it was a win. The feeling of satisfaction that he’d gotten something right in this ridiculous mystery stayed with him all the way to the Gull, where it was dashed by the bright eyes watching him from the railing of the deck. Duke spared a glance upward. “One day of normal,” he said to no one in particular. “Is that really too much to ask?”

Snowfall sat up as Duke exited his truck. “The sun has been up _forever_ ,” he said accusingly. “Where have you been?”

“It’s Sunday,” Duke said, aware of how little this would mean to a squirrel. He’d half considered just not opening today – Sundays were the slowest day of the week anyway – but he’d eventually decided that somebody out there was likely to consider this cheating and exact revenge.

“You said you were going to find a way to fix me.” Snowfall said, ignoring the explanation, as Duke had expected he would.

“Working on it,” Duke said shortly. “You’re not the only one suffering from this Trouble, you know. The rest of us want to finish it just as much as you do.” He was feeling especially motivated to get this one solved as soon as humanly possible, given the events of the previous night. The conversation he’d had with Nathan... well, he couldn’t exactly say he regretted it; he’d sort of owed Nathan that _thank you_ for a good while now and Nathan apparently hadn’t even realized it. But what the hell had possessed him to get that real, that _vulnerable_? He’d let more of his guard down than he had with Nathan in a long time, and while he’d stopped short of letting anything he’d really regret slip out he was leery of the prospect of a repeat performance. He didn’t even know what had caused it, if it had been a story taking hold of him or just his gut-level terror of the sirens’ influence, or something else entirely. _I should have just called Audrey_.

“I suppose you’re probably trying as best you can,” Snowfall said with bad grace. “But you have no idea how exhausting it is following you around all day!”

“Try _being_ me some time,” Duke said, and instantly regretted it. No sense in giving the universe ideas. He offered the squirrel his arm. “Come on; I’ve got some peanuts behind the bar. You can have ‘em as long as you stay out of sight if anyone else comes in.”

The tiny forepaws folded indignantly. “Do you really think it’s going to be that easy to get back on my good side?”

“Yes?” Duke hazarded.

Snowfall eyed him for another moment before hopping onto his arm and scrambling up to his shoulder. “You’re right,” he admitted. “But only because I’m apparently stuck with you.”

“Story of my life.”

Duke stayed at the Gull only long enough to make sure that everything was in its proper order and to hand the keys over to the first competent employee to clock in after him. Hinting that there were rumors of a restaurant critic in the area would be, he hoped, enough to have the staff on their best behavior for the day. The hazel tree was still watching him from the window.

Snowfall insisted on accompanying Duke to the police station, or at least to the parking lot. “I can keep an ear out for you from outside,” he said. “I’ve had enough of Insides for a while.” That was fine by Duke, who was less than thrilled by the prospect of gaining a reputation as ‘the guy with the squirrel.’ He felt even more strongly about this when Stan gave him a scrutinizing look as he breezed past the front desk. He’d spent years slipping everything he did under Stan’s affable radar, but apparently the whole ‘wild animals in a government building’ thing was where he drew the line.

There was no hesitation as Duke reached Nathan and Audrey’s office. He absolutely did not pause with his hand on the door, steeling himself to open it and face Nathan and whatever response he was going to have to the previous night. Duke Crocker didn’t worry about things like that, and he wasn’t about to let anybody think otherwise.

Both detectives were huddled over one desk when he opened the door, studying a spread of paperwork. “There you are,” Audrey said, looking up at him with a smile. “I figured you’d be down here the second you woke up.”

“I’ve got a business to run,” Duke reminded her, not really paying any attention. He was focused on Nathan, who’d looked up half a second before she had. His head had snapped up at the sound of the door, in fact, looking desperately for something. Something he’d found. Duke had had years of practice in reading the barely-visible cues in Nathan’s expressions, and in the sudden light in those blue eyes he could see undisguised relief.

Something in Duke’s heart gave a little jump. He hadn’t known what to expect, and he’d tried to be ready for anything from confusion to derision. He definitely hadn’t been ready for the possibility that Nathan would have been _concerned_ about him, even beyond the immediacy of the situation of last night and into the cold light of morning. It was... Duke didn’t know exactly what it was. But it was a good feeling. He inclined his head briefly, a quick _yeah, I’m okay_. Nathan blinked in acknowledgement before turning his attention back to the desk.

The moment over, Duke pulled himself together and joined them. “What are we looking at?”

“Anything unusual that got reported to anyone last night,” Nathan told him. “Park services, highway patrol, animal control, fire department, anyone. Trying to figure out what’s Trouble-related and what’s normal weirdness.”

“Tell me there’s nothing from the harbor,” Duke said quietly, suddenly fervent.

“Not so far,” Audrey told him, looking surprised by his reaction. Nathan had apparently not told her about the sirens. Duke wasn’t sure how he felt about that, either.

“We had a handful of kids who disappeared overnight after the fall carnival,” Nathan said. “They all made it back home by morning. Nobody’s hurt, and they all swear they were just ‘out with friends’ and ‘lost track of time.’ An excuse I’m sure none of us have ever used,” he added wryly. “Could be _The Twelve Dancing Princesses_ , could just be teenagers.” He indicated another paper. “There’s a beanstalk doing some serious damage in a community garden, probably the same place Dwight found the other guy. He’s out there seeing if he can cut it down before anyone gets any ideas.”

“What about that librarian you were going to look into?” Duke asked.

“Still no answer on her phone,” Audrey said. “Someone’s on the way out to her address to check up on her, but in the meantime we’re just making sure there’s nothing from last night that needs immediate attention.” She rifled through the papers again. “Nothing’s jumping out at me,” she said. “Everything else just looks like the usual weekend chaos.” She cocked an eyebrow at Duke. “Mind taking another look?”

Duke wondered if she really thought he was going to find something they hadn’t, or if she was just looking for something for him to do. He gave a little shrug and squeezed in with them at the desk. “Your definition of ‘weekend chaos’ is cute,” he said after a few minutes. “Noise complaints. Drunk and disorderlies. Someone saying they saw a bear in town, which may or may not be connected to one of the aforementioned drunks. Not exactly gonna make the national news.”

“Is there anything here we need to investigate or not,” Nathan said.

Was it Duke’s imagination, or was his ‘stop screwing around’ tone less impatient than usual? “If the bear didn’t knock on anyone’s door and ask for shelter, then no.”

“And if it had?”

“Prince in disguise.”

“Of course.”

The radio on Nathan’s desk interrupted them. “Nobody’s home at the Harper residence, honey,” Laverne said. “Neighbors say they haven’t seen her all weekend."

“Thanks, Laverne,” Nathan said. “Since before this all started,” he added to Duke and Audrey.

A thought that had been taking shape in the back of Duke’s mind for a while started to come to the fore. “Speaking of that,” he said. “As far as we can tell, the fairy tales started creeping in on Friday, right?” Nods from the other two. “Then this is the third day. We don’t fix it now, there’s a chance we won’t be able to at all.”

“Everything comes in threes,” Audrey said, understanding. “So we’ve got a deadline. I’ll get back in touch with Doreen and see if she has any idea where Caroline might be if she’s not at home.”

“You mean aside from the library?”

“Closed for the weekend,” Audrey said. “They were supposed to be doing some kind of mass re-cataloguing thing, but for some reason they couldn’t. Doreen explained it, but I’m still not sure what’s going on; some issues with an outside contractor, I guess. But the library’s still closed, and nobody’s supposed to be in there until Monday. Which doesn’t mean Caroline isn’t there, but if she is, she didn’t tell anyone and she’s not answering the phone.”

They were interrupted by a knock, and the door opening a crack. “Got a message for you, Chief,” Rafferty said, poking her head in.

Nathan waved her in. “What is it?”

A slip of paper landed on his desk. “Something’s going on at the sheep farm,” she said. “Sandra didn’t want to say what it was over the phone, but she says it’s one of _your_ cases.”

“Haven has a _sheep farm_?” Audrey asked, a bright grin spreading across her face. “And here I thought I’d heard about all the tourist attractions.”

“Few miles outside of town. If it can be produced locally, someone probably is,” Nathan pointed out. “Wool’s no exception. Thanks, I’ll take care of it,” he added to Rafferty.

She gave him a nod and turned to leave, ducking around Duke. Her elbow bumped against the doorframe, and she let out a yelp of pain.  
Everyone jumped. A simple knock shouldn’t have been enough to cause that kind of reaction. “Hey, you okay?” Duke asked.

“Yeah,” Rafferty said, rubbing her arm distractedly. “Just hit a bruise.” She winced as she rolled up her sleeve to examine it. “I must’ve slept wrong or something; I woke up completely black and blue this morning.” Her skin was peppered with dark spots like buckshot.

_Or like peas_ , Duke thought. “Where did you sleep?”

“Spare room at Duncan’s parents’ place.” _Not that it’s any of your business_ , her face added clearly. Duke held his hands up disarmingly. “Didn’t bother _him_ any, of course,” she added in a grumble. “That man could sleep in a gravel pit.” She seemed to notice that they were all looking at her thoughtfully. “Why? Something going on?”

“Possibly,” Audrey said before Duke could say anything. “But you’re not in any danger. Just keep an eye on those bruises, and let one of us know if anything seems weird about them.” She was giving Rafferty her ‘trust me’ face.

As happened so often, to Duke’s amazement, it worked. “I will,” Rafferty said, looking relieved even though five seconds ago she hadn’t known there was something she should be worried about.

“Didn’t see that one coming,” Nathan commented mildly after she left. “Not the first person here I’d suspect of being a princess in disguise.”

“Kind of the point, isn’t it?” Audrey pointed out. She picked up the slip of paper Rafferty had brought in. “Think this is something we need to check out?”

“There’s a good chance it is,” Nathan said. “Sandra’s pretty level-headed. If she thinks there’s a problem that needs our attention, there probably is.” He flicked an eyebrow at Duke. “You know any fairy tales about sheep?”

“Yeah, actually. There’s one about a princess who gets rescued by a prince who’s been turned into an enchanted sheep, and he takes her to live with him in his magical underground kingdom.” He’d been expecting the stares. “Dead serious,” he said, holding up his hands. “Why would I make something like that up? Once you get past the Disney selection, fairy tales are weird.”

“Gonna take a wild guess and say that’s not what we’re dealing with here,” Nathan said. He gave Audrey a playful look. “What do you think, Parker? Want to go tour the sheep farm?”

“I really kind of do,” Audrey confessed, the grin coming back. “But I need to stay in town and look for Caroline. If I’m really immune to the stories she’s spinning, I might have the best chance of getting to her. You mind taking care of this one alone?” She gave Duke a look. “Unless...?”

Duke waved her away. “Me and farms don’t mix,” he said. “There was an incident with a goose when I was a small child. What?” he added as Nathan gave him a wry look. “They’re very terrifying animals when you’re two feet tall.”

“I’ve got it under control, Parker,” Nathan said over Duke’s head.

“Okay,” Audrey said. “You deal with the sheep.” She tilted her head at Duke. “You coming with me, then? I’m gonna need someone who can interact with the stories backing me up.”

“Not like I have much of a choice, if I want to get my life back,” Duke said. It was mostly a token protest, and Audrey knew it. “Where are we going?”

“We’ll figure that out on the way,” Audrey said, standing up and reaching for her jacket. She threw another grin over her shoulder at Nathan. “Pet a sheep for me while you’re out there.”

*

The forest was quiet. Not ‘too quiet,’ just ‘nothing at all is happening’ quiet. It would have been peaceful, if it wasn’t so boring.

Jordan had to admit that, given the prevalence of little cabins in the woods in fairy tales, it was probably a good idea to have someone keeping watch over some of the Guard’s more remote safe houses until this latest Trouble was taken care of. Which didn’t make her any less annoyed by the prospect of being stuck out here alone for the day. She leafed through the book she’d brought, unable to concentrate on it. She couldn’t stop her mind from drifting off, wondering what Nathan and his people had found out, what other stories they’d run into. And of course she couldn’t shake the question that came along with that: _What’s my story?_ Not that she _wanted_ to be targeted by this Trouble, exactly, but the curiosity wouldn’t leave her alone. What kind of fairy tale was likely to latch onto a cursed waitress who swore she hadn’t always been this angry?

The book continued to be uninteresting. She should have followed her first impulse and hunted up a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. It would have at least counted as research. It might have given her a better idea of what she was in for if anything came up.

One of the windows rattled so suddenly and sharply that she nearly fell out of her chair. By force of habit she reached for the gloves she’d taken off as soon as she was alone, although the more logical part of her brain pointed out that anyone who was likely to come after her out here would know who she was and be unlikely to touch her by accident, and anyone else trying to get into the cabin was someone she’d be wise to stay armed against. To that second point, with equally fluid instinct she shouldered the hunting rifle that had been lying on the table in front of her just in case.

The hunting rifle, as it turned out, had been an unexpectedly fitting choice. The stag bumping his antlers against the broad front window was one of the largest Jordan had ever seen, with a rack like a small tree. He would have been the kind of trophy someone could brag about for _decades_. And he was looking through the window at her with a friendly, expectant expression, which she was pretty sure a deer shouldn’t be able to pull off. So much for wondering what her story was.

Jordan set the rifle down, but kept it nearby just in case. She undid the latch on the window and pushed it open slowly, expecting the animal to bolt at any moment. When he didn’t, she wasn’t sure what to do next. “Hi there,” she said softly, opening the window all the way. “What are you doing out here?”

The window was large enough for the great branched antlers to fit through it easily, and the stag pushed his head inside until he was nearly nose to nose with her. He breathed in her face, a warm, heavy smell that wasn’t entirely unpleasant, and flicked his ears invitingly.  
He looked like he was waiting, and Jordan didn’t know what for. She couldn’t think of any fairy tales that involved deer at all, let alone ones that got this bold. “Is there something you want to tell me?” she asked, feeling less ridiculous than she thought she probably should. No response. “Somewhere you want to take me?” she suggested. Still the stag said nothing, just breathed at her again.

Jordan sighed. She’d apparently gotten tangled in a story, and she didn’t even know which one it was. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m afraid I don’t know this one.” Cautiously, she put her hand up to pat the stag’s ears. Her curse didn’t affect animals – she’d found that out by accident after a long period of refusing to test it – but it still might break whatever spell was happening here.

The stag let out a loud sigh that sounded unexpectedly contented. The big head rolled to the side, leaning into Jordan’s hand like a happy dog’s. She ducked under the antlers with a surprised laugh. “Is that all you wanted?” she asked. “Just a little company?” There were more happy sounds as she scratched the ears, reaching her other hand up to ruffle the fur under his chin at the same time. “I guess I can do that,” she murmured.

The stag’s fur was warm and soft. A little dirty, probably, and stinking of wild animal, but still pleasant to touch. Jordan could feel herself letting out a little happy sigh of her own. This was no substitute for human contact, of course, but it had been such a long time since anything living had reacted positively to her touch. _Aside from Nathan_ , she corrected herself, trying to ignore the voice in the back of her head reminding her that he couldn’t actually feel her, and that ‘not recoiling in pain’ wasn’t the same as ‘reacting positively.’ “I don’t mind just being ‘that girl who can charm wild animals,’” she said, mostly to herself. “But I was hoping you’d have something more to say to me.”

“Even when they can talk, deer rarely have anything to say.”

The voice came out of nowhere, making Jordan jump and the stag grunt in irritation. She reached for the rifle again as she turned past the stag to face the figure approaching the cabin from the trees.

It was an old woman, older than anyone Jordan could remember seeing outside of a nursing home, in a ragged grey dress that might be better classified as a robe. Iron-grey hair hung around her face in loose wisps, making her look lost and disheveled, but her face had the look of someone who knows exactly where she is and what she’s doing at all times. She also didn’t seem the least bit fazed to see someone raising a gun in her direction. “Put that down, child,” she said with a wave of her hand. “There’s no need for it here. Though I do apologize if I startled you.”

Jordan did lower the gun, though she continued to watch the woman warily. She wasn’t Guard, and she wasn’t anyone Jordan recognized from the area. There was nothing inherently strange about her, at least nothing that Jordan could see, except for the inherent strangeness of a ragged old woman wandering in the woods, and that was strangeness enough to suggest that she was part of this Trouble. _Always be kind to strangers, especially old women_ , she thought, remembering some of the fairy tale ‘rules’ Nathan had passed on to her. “I wasn’t expecting to see anyone else out here,” she said. She kept one hand on the stag’s neck; he was solid and reassuring.

“Nor was I,” the old woman said. She leaned on the windowsill, on the far side of the stag, setting down a bag she had slung over her shoulder. “Left you alone all the way out here, have they?”

“I’m not alone,” Jordan said automatically, her self-preservation instinct reminding her not to make herself look vulnerable.

“Yes, I can see that,” the old woman said with a wry look at the stag. The animal was eyeing her warily, leaning closer to Jordan.

The stag’s reaction was enough to make Jordan keep her own caution up, and to make her keep her distance, but there was also curiosity to contend with. “Is there something I can help you with?” she asked.

The old woman waved a hand dismissively. “I don’t need anything, child,” she said. “I only heard your voice and thought I might offer a bit of conversation.” She rubbed her shoulder. “Not that I don’t mind putting that bag down for a minute.”

Jordan knew an opening for an offer of kindness when she heard one. “If you’d like to sit down...”

“Don’t trouble yourself for me, dear. Besides, I’m sure those who left you here wouldn’t appreciate it. No doubt they made you promise that you wouldn’t open the door to anyone.”

“Not in so many words,” Jordan said, trying to make it sound like an admission. Something about the way the old woman had said that, the words she’d used, was putting her on edge. _There may not be any stories about cursed waitresses, but there are plenty of stories about girls out in the woods alone._

“Good for them, looking out for you like that. I won’t make you break a promise. But, no harm in a chat through the window, is there?” the old woman said with a warm smile. She looked like someone’s grandmother when she said it, friendly and harmless and ready to hear everything you had to say and keep it all as secret as you needed.

“I guess not,” Jordan said, although she was growing more certain by the minute that there was plenty of harm to be found here.

“No, of course not.” The old woman bent down to rummage through the bag she’d dropped. “And what’s a little chat without something pleasant to go along with it?” she asked. “Here we are. Lighten an old woman’s load a bit.”

The stag’s nostrils flared, and he belled a sharp warning that Jordan didn’t need. The pieces clicked together in her head even before she saw the apple. _Skin as white as snow, hair as black as ebony, lips... well, two out of three._

“Go on,” the witch encouraged, biting into a second apple herself. “I have plenty, and food always tastes better when it’s shared.”

It was tempting. A chance to be part of the story, to sit back and wait and find out who would save her. Someone would, she was certain enough of that. And then she’d know exactly who it was that she could count on, who she could trust. Possibly even who it was that she could love. With a sigh, Jordan gently pushed the stag away and reached out her hand.

There was a shout, partly of pain but mostly of indignation, as her hand closed around the witch’s wrist. Jordan held firm as the witch tried to pull away. “I hate doing this,” she said quietly. “But I’d hate it even more if I thought you were real.”

*

“Library’s the most obvious place to start,” Audrey said as she and Duke piled into her car. “Unless you have a different theory.”

Duke shook his head. He was developing a new sympathy for Audrey; being the guy everyone thought had all the answers was wearing on him. “I can’t predict these stories, I can only tell you where they’re going once they get started. If Doreen had any good information for you about this girl, you’re ahead of me.”

“I just hope it _is_ good information,” Audrey said. “If we go through all this, and Caroline isn’t the one we’re looking for...”

“It’d be a pretty crappy fairy tale if we spent all this time chasing a bad lead, wouldn’t it?” Duke pointed out. Audrey made an amused sound, which encouraged him. “I mean, if this was _literature_ we were talking about then there’s a good bet that everything we have ever done in this life is futile,” he continued. 

“And the whole thing would be some kind of tortured metaphor for the industrial revolution,” Audrey agreed. She rolled her eyes. “I do not remember lit class fondly.” A pause. “Well, I have someone’s memories of not being fond of lit class, anyway,” she added.

“I mostly remember sleeping through mine, the ones I didn’t skip,” Duke said, trying to head her off before she started going down the ‘who am I, really’ road. It never led her anywhere non-distressing. “And then trying to read some of the books on my own when I was older, and remembering _why_ they were putting me to sleep. A whole bunch of people accomplishing nothing and then talking about it forever. But fairy tales? With fairy tales, if you think what you’re doing is the right answer, it probably is. The only reasons people really set out to do something and fail in fairy tales is because either someone else is destined to succeed, or because they pissed someone off and got deliberately given bad information.” He gave Audrey a sidelong, teasing look. “You _were_ nice to Doreen, right?”

That got another mini-laugh out of her. “If she was leading me on, she was putting a lot of effort into it. This street, or the one after it?” she added, nodding towards the upcoming intersection.

“Next one, on the left,” Duke said, brow furrowed. “You mean you don’t _know_ where the library is?”

“Just because it’s _your_ second home,” Audrey countered with another roll of her eyes.

“It’s not like you can _miss_ it, though,” Duke said as they made their way to the next intersection. “I figured you would have at least _noticed_ it.”

Audrey took her eyes off the road just long enough to shoot him a curious look. “What are you— _oh_.”

She cut off in a gasp as the library loomed ahead of them, dark and heavy. This close to it, only the roof was visible above the mile-thick tangle of briars that ringed it on all sides. The air was filled with the hiss of the brambles writhing against each other, quiet but all-pervasive. Audrey slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to a halt in the middle of the street. “What the _hell_ is this,” she said in a choked voice as she leapt out and began running towards the library.

It occurred to Duke almost too late that if she had somehow never noticed the library, she probably didn’t know about the safe zone. “Audrey, wait!” he said, jumping out of the car after her.

He caught her by the arm and pulled her to a stop just half a foot away from the yellow line painted on the asphalt a few yards from the edge of the briar patch. The hissing intensified as the briars woke up, recognizing that someone was nearby. “Don’t get any closer,” he warned.

Audrey was frozen, staring back and forth between him and the briars with a look of bewildered horror. “Duke?” she said in a small, hesitant voice. “What’s going on?”

Duke covered a sigh. However she’d done it, she’d somehow managed to miss this particular tourist attraction. And showing her would be easier than explaining. “Don’t move,” he told her. When she nodded, he let go of her arm and slowly took a step forward. When he was younger, he and the other kids were always daring each other to step over the line, to see who could get the closest to the briars before chickening out and running back to safety. He guessed that the current generation of neighborhood kids were probably still doing it. He put one foot over the yellow line and continued advancing, keeping low and stealthy as if he could somehow sneak up on it.

In the space between one heartbeat and the next, the briars went from a quietly seething mass to an explosion, bursting out to grab at him. Duke scuttled back hurriedly, leaping over the line with no care for how undignified he probably looked. The briars continued to roil like a boiling pot for a moment before going back to their usual hiss. “That’s a rush,” Duke said mildly.

Audrey wasn’t looking quite so horrified anymore, but now she gave him a skeptical eye. “And this seems normal to you?”

“Haven normal, yeah.” Duke shook his head. “I’m trying not to be a jackass about this, but I don’t see how it can possibly be new information for you. The briar thicket has sealed the library off for, like, a hundred years now. Everything inside it is locked away until the rightful hero comes forth to claim the sword and cut it down. Everyone knows that.”

“This library,” Audrey said flatly.

“Yeah.”

“The one that was last open on Friday. The one you just told me last night that you practically lived in when you were a kid.”

“Yeah,” Duke repeated less confidently. He _did_ remember saying that. And it had been true, hadn’t it? He’d spent hours in the library, a drab municipal building flanked by two other drab municipal buildings. But... _this_ was the library, deep in the briar labyrinth that was a fixture of the neighborhood, the same as it had always been. He was quite firm on that in his mind. “It’s always been like this,” he said, a little helplessly.

“I think it feels that way to you,” Audrey said, and she was using her ‘calming down the Troubled time bomb’ voice. _Great_. “But it’s part of this Trouble. You’re caught in another story, and it’s making you believe things that you know don’t make any sense.”

Duke shook his head. She was mistaken. Not trying to deceive him, just... wrong. He was very clear on this.

She was still talking. “Last night you told me that it was a paradise when you were a kid,” she said relentlessly. “A heated building where you didn’t have to pay and nobody would kick you out as long as you didn’t cause trouble. How could you say that about a building that’s been locked off for centuries?”

Duke ground the heel of his hand into his forehead. She was right; she had to be. He remembered everything she was saying and more besides, the smell of the books and the sound of a dozen people being quiet. But when he tried to think about _that_ library there was a crawling feeling at the base of his skull, like something pawing at his brain, telling him that the briar patch had _always been there_. It was a more subtle version of the feeling he’d had when the sirens’ song started creeping in on him, which was enough to tell him that there was a problem here. “I believe you,” he said with some difficulty. “But I can’t shake this.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be trying,” Audrey said thoughtfully, although she had a hand firmly on his arm like she expected him to bolt in an unknown direction at any second. “You might have some useful information lurking in there. What were you just saying about the rightful hero?”

What _was_ he just saying? Duke tried to take his mind away from the memories that Audrey was telling him were the real ones, setting the words that were _itching_ to come out free. “The library is waiting for the rightful hero to claim the sword and cut through the briars to rescue the princess,” he said. The words came out without thought, like something he’d memorized for a test but had no context for. He let out a heavy sigh, feeling like something had let him go, like whatever was crawling on his brain had been holding him hostage until he delivered the message and was willing to leave him alone for now.

“There we go,” Audrey said encouragingly. “That’s more information than we had when we got here.”

“Suddenly knowing the answer out of nowhere,” Duke said to himself, thinking of his conversation with Nathan last night. “An insult to the reader, but really handy when it works.”

Audrey raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. “A hero, a sword, and a princess,” she said. “Well, the princess is probably Caroline. You got any details about the rest of it?”

“You know as much as I do now,” Duke said. “Just enough information to be no help at all.”

“It’s somewhere to start,” Audrey told him. A gentle tug on his arm. “Come on, let’s get you away from here.” Duke had to agree that this seemed like the best course of action.

As soon as they were back in the car Audrey was on the radio to Laverne. “Weird question, Laverne. Do you know of anywhere in town where there’s a sword on display?”

“You mean aside from the one outside the police station?” Laverne’s voice crackled.

Audrey and Duke shared a silent, significant look. “Yeah, aside from that one,” Audrey said.

“The history museum might have a couple,” Laverne said. “I can call them and find out for sure.”

“No, I can check it out on the way, thanks,” Audrey said. She raised an eyebrow at Duke. “We’re double-checking some research out here. How old is the sword outside the station, again?”

A confused sound. “Nobody knows, honey. It’s been there for as long as anyone can remember.”

“That’s what I thought,” Audrey said grimly. “Thanks, Laverne.” She disconnected and turned to Duke. “‘As long as anyone can remember,’” she echoed. “Except that it definitely wasn’t there when we left.”

Duke had a hand to his forehead again. There were vague memories of a sword, but it was like something he’d heard somewhere and put out of his mind, not the aggressive memories of the library. “I think,” he said slowly, trying to find the words, “that it _has_ been there for a long time, but it wasn’t there until someone went to the library and found out that it was supposed to have been there for a long time.” A baffled laugh. “Or something like that.”

“No, I think I get it,” Audrey said. She gave him a wry smile. “So, how heroic are you feeling?”

*

“I’m flattered, really,” Duke said as they drove back to the police station, only sounding a little sarcastic. “But I’m telling you, if the story is specifically asking for a hero it’s not going to be me. I’m a loveable rogue at best.”

“You were the first person to know about the library and the sword,” Audrey pointed out. “And you said it yourself, that fairy tales tend to be pretty straight to the point about getting to the solution.”

“Or I’m just the weird guy who goes into the woods and comes out with tales of strange happenings that set the main character off on his journey,” he countered. “I’m going to mention the sword in a crowd, and then a tailor or a kid who herds pigs is going to go and claim it.”

Audrey almost asked how likely it was that there was a swineherd somewhere in town, but that was beside the point. “You’re pretty firm on this ‘I’m not a hero’ thing, aren’t you?”

“I know what these stories are looking for,” Duke said. “And I’m not it, thank God. Like I need _another_ destiny.”

“Fair enough,” Audrey said, giving him a sympathetic look. “But you’ll still try, right?”

Duke gave a resigned sigh, pushing his hair out of his eyes. “Yes, I will attempt to pull the sword out of the stone to save the town,” he said. “Have I ever _not_ at least tried?” Audrey had to admit that he hadn’t, and the two of them were silent for the rest of the short drive back.

The stone jutting up from the grassy hillside in front of the station looked like it had been there for ages, sitting a tasteful distance from the walkway like a piece of public art. The sword embedded in its top stood out at an angle that made it look like it was just resting there, waiting for someone to pick it up. The bit of the blade that was visible gleamed liquid silver, and the darker metal of the hilt shone. There was coppery detailing on the hilt, making it look like it was wrapped in briars, and the guard was fashioned to resemble a pair of leathery wings. “Look familiar?” Audrey asked.

Duke was still standing some distance back, taking in the entire scene, and Audrey wondered if he was fitting the sword and stone into his mental image of the police station or trying to convince himself that it hadn’t always been there. “Yeah,” he said slowly, the same tone he’d used when they’d been discussing his memories of the library. “Like it’s something that’s been there so long that you don’t really see it anymore.”

“Well, even if you hadn’t already told me it was connected to the library I think we would have figured it out,” Audrey said, indicating the decorative briars. When Duke bent down to take a closer look, she sighed and dug in her pocket. “You realize you’ve been pushing your hair back all day, right?” she asked, coming up with a spare hair tie and holding it out to him. “Trust me, it’s long enough to tie back now.”

“I must look bad if Audrey Parker is giving me style advice,” Duke teased, taking the hair tie gratefully.

“I had short hair for a couple years,” she told him. “I remember how much growing it out sucked. I couldn’t _wait_ for it to get out of that ‘too long to ignore, too short to do anything with’ stage.”

Which was strange, if she thought about it for any length of time. She had developed a sort of uneasy acceptance regarding most of the memories in her head that didn’t actually belong to her, but this was a memory of someone else’s body. She was remembering someone else’s hair, growing out to a length and color that hers had never been, and the memory was slotting itself perfectly into her mind despite all the evidence that it couldn’t be right, or at least couldn’t be hers. It was more than a little distressing, and it was something she didn’t _want_ to think about for any length of time.

Duke was giving her a concerned look as he pulled his hair back into a short ponytail. “You okay, Audrey? You kinda spaced out there for a second.”

“I’m fine,” Audrey said. “Just... me and memories. You know.” He gave her a short, understanding nod, and she reached up to brush at the little bit of hair around his face that was apparently still too short to stay pulled back. “Nice to see your face again.”

“It is my most valuable contribution to society,” Duke agreed. He turned his attention to the sword. “Here goes nothing,” he said. “But I’m telling you, it’s not gonn— _agh_!

“Duke!” He had lurched backwards, clutching his hand. “What happened?”

Muttering a few harsh words under his breath, Duke shook his hand out and examined it. Dark red welts crossed his palm in a pattern that resembled the briars on the hilt. “I’m _really_ not what it’s looking for,” he said with a hiss of pain.

“Jesus,” Audrey muttered, taking hold of his wrist and taking a closer look. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he grunted, flexing his fingers. He sucked in a breath, then let it out more easily. “Pain’s already fading,” he said, and Audrey could see that the welts were, too. Within less than a minute they were gone entirely, not even leaving the soft pink of a freshly-healed wound. He gently tugged his wrist out of her grip. “Told you I wasn’t hero material,” he said with his usual casual manner. Even so, if Audrey looked closely she thought there might be a hint of disappointment in his eyes.

On a hunch, Audrey stepped around him and took hold of the sword herself, ignoring his sounds of warning and giving it a firm tug. There was a jolt of pain, but not the same one that had driven Duke back. Pulling on the sword was like trying to yank a steel bar out of set concrete, and she felt the resistance all the way up to her shoulder. “It’s all right,” she said, showing Duke her unmarked hand. “It’s ignoring me, like the rest of the stories.” She rubbed her shoulder. “It’s _solid_ , though. That thing’s not moving until it wants to.”

“And we have to figure out who’s gonna be able to convince it,” Duke said. “And I’m not sure how patient it’s gonna be while we work that out.” Audrey gave him a questioning look. “What it did to me? That was a _warning_. It could’ve done a lot worse if it wanted to; I could feel that much.”

“You think it was holding back?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know why. Or if lining the entire town up to try it is gonna annoy it into getting meaner.”

Audrey chewed her lip, thinking. “Or maybe it doesn’t think you’re unworthy enough to do any permanent damage to.”

Duke raised an eyebrow. “Thank you?” he hazarded.

“The sword is outside the police station,” she continued. “That can’t be a coincidence. And you’re not exactly law enforcement’s favorite person, but even the cops who’re dying to bust you for _something_ all consider you basically harmless. What did you call yourself? ‘Loveable rogue’?”

“I’ll try not to take offense at ‘harmless.’”

“But you see where I’m going with this,” Audrey pressed. “It’s looking for someone... lawful good, for lack of a better way to say it.”

“You just lost whatever right you had to tease me about my taste in reading materials,” Duke told her with a wry look.

“Hey, you understood it,” she countered with a smile. He gave her a ‘fair enough’ shrug. “And since it’s looking for a lawful good hero and it showed up here...”

“It’s looking for a cop,” Duke finished for her. “Because of _course_ it is.”

“Which at least narrows our search. Any suggestions on narrowing it further, or do we line up the entire force out here?”

Duke was looking over her head, the way he did sometimes when he was thinking. “Two ways this one could go,” he said. “It’s either someone who’s really obviously already got the ‘destined hero’ thing going on, or it’s the guy at the very bottom of the ladder who nobody pays any attention to until suddenly he’s the center of everything.”

“So, either the Chief of Police who inherited the job from his adoptive father, or Stan?”

“Pretty much.” Duke shook his head. “I _really_ hope it’s Stan.”

*

The smell of sheep was all-pervading. It wasn’t a _bad_ smell, exactly, but it _clung_. Nathan wrinkled his nose as he exited his truck just outside the farm’s perimeter, thought for a moment, and took his jacket off and left it on the front seat. Sandra wouldn’t hesitate to rope him into giving her a hand if she could, and the jacket would be the hardest thing to get the smell out of later.

The sounds came next, the milling bleats of unconcerned sheep mixing with human voices and the occasional bark of a dog. As Nathan crested a small hill he could see the flock covering the ground like a dirty-white fog bank, with two or three human figures moving between the sheep and doing whatever it was that farmhands did. One of the figures caught sight of Nathan and gave him a wave, turning around with a whistle to one of the others. That one straightened from where she’d been crouched and said something to the first one, who nodded, and made her way towards Nathan.

A lanky woman in her middle fifties, Cassandra Pace had always reminded Nathan of his father in her brusque and businesslike nature. “Wuornos,” she greeted him, holding out her hand.

He shook it. “Morning, Sandra. What’s going on?”

Sandra didn’t respond, just tossed her head in the direction of one of the outbuildings and headed towards it. “We had a visitor last night,” she said. “You know we keep one of the barns open to the public some days?”

Nathan nodded. A significant percentage of the farm’s wool got processed by hand on-site, and it was a popular destination for crafters looking for fleece and handspun yarn, as well as for school trips looking for demonstrations of how a sheep became a sweater. Nathan had been in that barn once or twice as a kid, back when Sandra’s father ran the farm, and once with an ex-girlfriend who’d been learning to crochet. “Older guy came in alone,” Sandra continued. “Said he used to spin a little, and asked if he could take a spin on the castle wheel.” She shrugged. “Everyone wants to try it out. But he sat down and I could tell right away he knew what he was doing, so I left him to it for a while. When I came back... well, I’ll show you.”

Sandra dug for her keys as the large black-and-white dog draped across the doorway of the building gave Nathan a wary look. “Didn’t want any of the hands seeing this until you had a look,” she said. “Ruin’s not a guard dog, but tell him to stay and you can’t move him with a crowbar.” The dog’s ears flicked at the sound of his name, but he did remain otherwise motionless. “Ruin, heel.”

The dog stood and made a wide circle, coming to heel at Sandra’s side as she unlocked the barn door and pulled it open. The barn was set up in stations, with separate areas for cleaning the wool, dyeing it, spinning it, and whatever other steps there were in between – Nathan had never paid much attention on those class trips. The spinning wheel, a massive, elegant thing that already looked like something out of a fairy tale, was near the center of the floor and surrounded by a neat pile of spools of yellowish thread. “He’d only done one or two when I first came back in,” Sandra said. “Offered to make as many more as I had straw for in exchange for the earrings I was wearing.”

It took Nathan a moment to realize what he was looking at, even with that description. He picked up one of the spools carefully, fascinated by the shine of it and the way the strands bent under his hands. “Gold?”

“Spun out of straw,” Sandra confirmed. “Wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t been watching him. He did just enough to convince me it was real, then he took the earrings and told me to leave him locked in for the night. I opened up this morning and he was gone, and this was all just lying here. I haven’t touched anything.”

Nathan made a noncommittal sound as he set the spool down. “Did he say anything else to you?”

“I didn’t ask any questions,” Sandra said, some of the brusqueness in her voice giving way to bemusement. “Listen, _today_ it’s obvious that something’s weird about the whole thing. But at the time...”

“It seemed to make perfect sense,” Nathan finished for her, repeating what so many of the people involved had already said.

Sandra caught the comprehension in his tone. “So this isn’t the only incident,” she said.

“Well, you’re the only person who’s been visited by Rumpelstiltskin so far,” Nathan said with a smile. “But there’s been plenty else going on.”

“Figured it had to be one of your Troubled folks,” Sandra said with a nod. “Although I think I’d be asking for a little more than dime-store jewelry if I could spin straw into gold.”

“There’s a little more to it than that,” Nathan said, not wanting to tell her too much. “But we’re looking into it. For now, just keep an eye out, and if he comes back, don’t let him in and don’t make any more bargains with him.”

Sandra gave him a wry look. “I doubt he’d be interested,” she said dryly. “The closest I have to a firstborn was the first lamb I ever delivered, and she’s been dead for years.”

Nathan couldn’t help smiling at her attitude. “All right,” he said. “I’d like to look around for a while, if you don’t mind.”

“Take all the time you need,” Sandra said with a wave. “Let me know if you need to ask any questions, but Ruin and I have to get back to the sheep.”

“I’ll tell you when I leave, so you can lock up again,” Nathan said.

Sandra nodded. She paused, giving him a shrewd look. “I don’t suppose there’s anything _illegal_ about spinning straw into gold, is there?”

“I guess not,” Nathan said, not sure where she was going with this.

“And I did pay for it, technically. So there’s really no reason I shouldn’t be allowed to keep it, right?”

It wasn’t something Nathan had actually considered. “No reason I can think of,” he had to admit with a smile. “I’m just not sure if it’s going to _stay_ gold once this is all over.”

“So sell it fast, is what you’re saying,” Sandra said, meeting his surprised look with a wry one that said she was only half serious. “Think your buddy Duke would know where to find a buyer? No, I guess he wouldn’t tell you if he did.”

Nathan still hadn’t formulated a reply to that by the time that Sandra turned and walked away, Ruin still at her heels. He shook his head, turning his attention back to the pile of spun gold. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he’d feel better having checked the place out thoroughly.

Trying to determine what was unusual here would have been much easier if Nathan had any idea what ‘normal’ looked like. The wheel was the only thing in the barn that he really recognized, and that only because he’d seen similar ones in so many storybook illustrations and movies. It was practically a fairy tale lightning rod, he thought as he gave the wheel part of it a gentle push and watched it turn, setting mechanisms he didn’t understand in motion. He made a mental note to look up exactly how these things worked next time he was killing time on the Internet.

The rest of the equipment that surrounded him was even more of a mystery. Nathan could guess that the massive metal bowls were for either washing wool or dyeing it, but the spiked rollers bolted to a table looked more like a torture device than anything and he gave them a wide berth. He was circling back to take another look at the gold when his phone rang. “Go ahead, Parker.”

“You still at the sheep farm?” Audrey asked.

“I was just about to leave,” he told her. He picked up one of the spools again. “Sandra got visited by Rumpelstiltskin.”

“Rumpelstiltskin,” Audrey repeated. “I’m guessing you wouldn’t sound so calm if he’d gotten as far as the child abduction stage yet.”

“Not yet,” Nathan confirmed. “Just the ‘trading jewelry for spinning straw into gold’ part, which Sandra seems to consider more than a fair trade so far. Not really something that we can do anything about, and she shouldn’t be in any danger as long as she doesn’t let him in next time he shows up.”

“Hopefully we’ll have this wrapped up before he’s due back,” Audrey said.

“Any luck on that front?”

“Possibly. Still working on it. Duke and I are pretty sure that if we can get into the library, we’ll be at the heart of this whole thing and we can fix it.” Audrey paused. “Nathan? Describe the library to me.”

Nathan furrowed his brow. “Big building in the center of town surrounded by a briar thicket. Why?”

“Thought so,” Audrey said, sounding like she was talking to herself. “A thicket that only the chosen hero can get through, right?” she went on at a more normal volume.

“If anyone ever figures out who that is.”

“We... might have figured that one out,” Audrey said slowly. “We’re working through a couple hunches, and there’s a good chance that it’s... well, you.”

She said it like she wasn’t sure how to break it to him, and he wasn’t sure how to respond. “No it’s not,” he finally said. It didn’t come anywhere near to expressing the confusion and disbelief that her statement had left him with, but it was the best he could do.

“Well, we won’t know for sure until you get here,” Audrey admitted. “But you fit all the requirements better than anyone. And besides,” she added, her voice going softer, “nobody does more to protect this town than you do.”

“You,” he countered with equal softness.

“I don’t count,” Audrey said, fumbling her way back to her usual briskness, pushing him away again. “I don’t fit into the stories, remember?”  
“You always fit into _my_ story,” Nathan couldn’t help saying. In the awkward silence that followed this, he added, “And this isn’t a Troubled story. Haven’s been looking for its hero since before I was born. It’s not going to be me.”

“Has it?” Audrey countered. “Who first told you that?”

It was like asking who first told you that the world was round, or the sky was blue. It was something you’d learned so early that how you found out didn’t matter anymore. “It’s not like I’m going to remember that,” Nathan said.

“Because no one ever told you. You just think they did. This is another story, Nathan. And this one is yours.”

Nathan shook his head, forgetting for the moment that she couldn’t see him. But at the same time... had he _ever_ heard anyone mention the library or the search for the hero? Even with the Troubles, there were conversations he’d overheard ever since he was a kid where, in hindsight, it was obvious what everyone was avoiding saying. They talked about it even if they didn’t talk about it. But he couldn’t remember anyone even pointedly _not_ talking about the library. “That can’t be right,” he said.

“I know,” Audrey said. “Believe me, I know; you’re not the first person I’ve had this conversation with today. But I need you to believe me.”

“I wish I could.” Nathan would _love_ to believe her. Admittedly a little bit because there was something appealing about the idea of being a destined hero, but mostly because if she was right then he had a chance to fix this particular Trouble before it did any more harm.

“If you meet me at the police station, I can prove it to you,” Audrey said. “And if I’m wrong, we can figure out what to do from there.”

Nathan nodded to himself, thinking. Even if her theory wasn’t right, he’d done all he could here, and it would be easier for them to plan their next move if they were all together. “Okay,” he said. “Let me just tell Sandra I’m leaving and I’ll be on my way.”

“Great, see you soon.” Another pause, sounding like Audrey was going to say something else. “Gold, huh?”

“I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” Nathan confessed. The light slanting in through the windows was reaching the pile now, making it glisten with a radiance that he didn’t have words for. He set the spool in his hand back among the rest and stepped back, leaning against a low table in the corner to take a better look at it all. He missed the table and stumbled, throwing a hand out to catch himself. It didn’t work. The world was still sliding sideways, and at the center of it was a splash of red. “Audrey?” His voice was suddenly thick, and it was hard to get the words out. “I think I’m bleeding.”

“Nathan? _Nathan!_ ” Audrey’s words fell away, down an echoing tunnel. Or maybe he was the one who was falling away, his vision narrowing to a single point of light before fading entirely as dark silence closed in around him. There was a shout in Nathan’s head, a voice telling him that he should have seen this coming, and then nothing.

*

“Cell reception still isn’t great that far out of town,” Duke told Audrey as they barreled down the road, heading for the sheep farm. “Nathan’s connection might have just dropped out.”

“He’d have found a way to call back by now,” Audrey said. “Either on the radio or on someone else’s phone. The contact number for the farm is a land line.”

“Sometimes those go out, too,” Duke said. “Wouldn’t surprise me if magic messes with them somehow. I’m just saying, no point in assuming the worst yet.”

Audrey took her eyes off the road to say something sarcastic, but it was plain on Duke’s face that he was trying to convince himself. “Maybe not,” she conceded grimly. It didn’t ease the knot in her stomach that had been getting tighter every minute since she’d hung up on the silence on Nathan’s end of the phone. She’d tried calling him back to no answer, nor had anyone answered the phone at the farm. She hadn’t hesitated a second before jumping in the car to go after him, and Duke had been right behind her. “This place isn’t that far is it?”

“No,” Duke said, and the fact that he didn’t say anything further was all the proof Audrey needed that he was just as worried as she was. He hadn’t offered any speculation as to what might have happened to Nathan, whether because he didn’t have any ideas or because he didn’t want to think about it.

The sheep farm really was only a short distance away, especially at the speed Audrey was driving. There was Nathan’s truck outside it, looking perfectly ordinary, with his jacket on the seat. “Anything about this look suspicious to you?”

“Not a lot of fairy tales about trucks,” Duke returned, not really looking at her.

Audrey took that as a ‘no.’ She peered through the truck’s window and ran a hand over the door, then checked the ground where she could still see Nathan’s footprints in the dust. “No blood.” It was occurring to her, belatedly, that there was always the possibility that Nathan had injured himself in some mundane way and just hadn’t noticed it until he’d bled enough to make him light-headed. She wasn’t sure if that would be a better or worse outcome than getting trapped in a story. “If he’s just wounded, it probably didn’t happen until he was away from here.”

Duke made a bitter sound. “If that jackass dragged us all the way out here because he’s ‘just wounded’ and didn’t notice, I’m gonna kill him.”

That brought Audrey out of her own concern for a moment. “You’re really worried about him, aren’t you?”

“Given that he’s apparently incapable of worrying about himself,” Duke said. His voice was sharp, but quiet, like he was talking more to himself than anything else.

It was the same strange tension that always seemed to hover between Duke and Nathan. They rarely seemed to be more than a few words away from a full-on brawl, but any time one of them was in real trouble the other would be the first to respond. It was exhausting to be caught in the middle of, and there had been plenty of times when Audrey had wanted to smack one or both of them and say _you don’t think you could try caring about him when you’re_ not _worried he’s gonna die?_ But there was something sweet about it, too, sometimes, knowing that she could rely on them to look out for each other, especially when the thought crept in that she might not be around to look after them much longer. “I’m sure he’s gonna be fine,” she told Duke. It was the same thing she’d tried to tell herself for the entire trip up, but when she was saying it to someone else she could almost make herself believe it. She started towards the farm, giving his arm a little tug “Come on.”

A flurry of barking heralded their arrival, catching the attention of a woman Audrey assumed was the farm’s owner. She had a sheep slung over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry, and she gave Audrey a speculative look as she approached them. “You’re Wournos’ new partner, yeah? The out-of-towner?”

“Audrey Parker,” she introduced herself, affecting a calm, professional demeanor. “And this is—”

“Him I know,” the woman said, though now she was eyeing Duke with a similarly probing look. “You working with them now?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Consulting,” Duke said. “On an as-needed basis.”

A dubious grunt. “Sandra Pace,” the woman said, shaking Audrey’s hand once. “Wournos call you out to help him?”

“He did,” Audrey said, relieved that she wasn’t going to have to convince this woman of anything. “Where is he?”

Sandra jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Big grey barn, can’t miss it. I’d take you, but I’m in the middle of something here. You folks gonna be much longer with this?”

“I hope not,” Audrey said with a smile that she hoped didn’t look too fake. “Thanks.”

“Duke,” Sandra said abruptly as the two of them turned to make their way to the barn. She gave Audrey the eye again and lowered her voice, though not so low that Audrey couldn’t hear. “When you’re done ‘consulting,’ give me a call. Got a business proposition for you.”

Duke raised an eyebrow, but nodded shortly before turning away again. “No idea,” he said in an undertone before Audrey could ask him what that had been about. She didn’t think he was lying, but she also thought that was the response he’d give her about a potential business deal under any circumstance.

The barn was probably not as imposing or ominous a building as it looked to Audrey just then. She balked, nervous at the thought of walking into _any_ barn at the moment. Duke stepped around her and opened the door, not taking any notice of her discomfort.

For all of their shared single-mindedness, both of them had to stop and stare for a moment at the sight inside. It was like someone had piled sunlight on the old floorboards. “That’s gold,” Duke said unnecessarily.

It was enough to break Audrey out of her own surprise. “Not why we’re here.”

“I’m just saying. That’s a _lot_ of gold.” Duke shook his head. “Nathan?” he called into the building. There was no answer.

The place was a mess of mystery tools and dark corners. If Nathan was here, he must be in the shadows somewhere. “Nathan?” she tried, half convinced that he still might answer her. He didn’t.

Duke was still staring fixedly at the spinning wheel, his face growing grim. “What?” Audrey asked.

He shook his head. “Got a hunch,” he said, walking forward. “Just find Nathan. He’s gonna be in here.”

He sounded more certain than Audrey felt. Realizing that he wasn’t going to give her any further explanation, she began circling the room, poking her head around the machinery and calling Nathan’s name.

It wasn’t long before she found the crumpled form collapsed under a table. “Nathan!”

He looked like he’d simply collapsed, half on his side with his legs folded under him and his arm outstretched. Audrey was on the floor beside him instantly, turning his face upward and checking for signs of life. She eventually located a pulse in his neck, slow and faint, and when she brought her face down close to his she could feel the warmth of his breath every few seconds. Her own pulse and breathing started to slow, coming down from the panic of that terrible moment when she’d thought he might be dead. “He’s alive,” she said to Duke, who she was just now noticing had been at her side from the moment he heard her shout.

Duke made a sound that was half relief, half annoyance. “Thought so,” he said. “Come on, get him out in the open.” He got his hands under Nathan’s legs, helping Audrey pull him out from under the table and flat onto his back.

“It’s like he’s in a coma,” Audrey said, extricating herself from his dead weight but staying on her knees at his side. “I don’t remember anything like this from _Rumpelstiltskin_.”

Duke was kneeling on Nathan’s other side, a hand on his shoulder. “He came in to check out one story and got caught in another,” he told her. He hooked one finger into the cuff of Nathan’s sleeve and lifted his arm, seemingly trying not to touch him. He let the arm fall to rest across Nathan’s chest, and Audrey understood why when she saw the trickle of blood running down the side of Nathan’s hand. “There’s blood on the spinning wheel, too,” Duke said quietly. He looked up at Audrey, and his mouth curled into an ironic smile. “At least this is one of the easy solutions,” he said, drawing back and sitting on his heels.

_Giving us a little breathing room_ , Audrey realized as the implication hit her. _Everyone_ knew how to wake up Sleeping Beauty. “I can’t,” she said. It was an automatic reaction as she recoiled from the idea of being Nathan’s true love’s kiss. She wasn’t in love with him, she had tried _so hard_ not to be, and doing something this mythical and dramatic to tell the world that she _was_ could only end in tragedy for him, as it had for the other men she’d loved.

“ _Why not_?”

The force in Duke’s voice, angry and frantic, nearly pushed her backwards. His teeth were bared, and he was looking at her with the sort of fury she was used to seeing from some of the more aggressively terrified Troubled people she’d dealt with. _You can fix this. Why haven’t you done it already?_ “I’m not part of the story, remember?” she shot back, almost as aggressive as he’d been. In her fear of marking Nathan as someone she loved, she’d forgotten that for a moment.

“Ever since you got here, he hasn’t had a single story you’re not part of,” Duke said, less angry but still forceful. “A Trouble isn’t going to change that.”

It was similar to what Nathan had said to her on the phone. _You always fit into my story_. He’d just been being as awkwardly sentimental as he always got around her, or so she’d assumed. But what if he’d been unwittingly giving her a clue that this one didn’t follow the same rules as the others? If it worked, she might be putting Nathan in danger in the future. But if she was supposed to wake him and she _didn’t_ , this Trouble might never be solved. She had to try. It was her duty. “Okay,” she murmured, hearing the breath go out of Duke as he stood up. “Okay.”

There was a lump in her throat as she bent over Nathan’s still form. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, praying that there would be time to fix whatever damage this might cause. Nathan’s lips were warm under hers, and she wondered if, in his unconscious state, he could still feel her. She didn’t know whether or not to hope he could.

Nothing happened. Nathan didn’t move; the rhythm of his slow breathing didn’t change. A second kiss continued to fail to show any results. Audrey looked up at Duke, seeing a mirror of her own feelings in the sick, sinking look on his face. “It didn’t work.”

“Okay,” Duke said, running a hand over the back of his neck and turning away from her to pace a few steps, his face and voice turning frantic with desperate thought. “There are other versions of the story. Sometimes... sometimes there’s a splinter of something under her nail, and taking that out wakes her up. Check his nails, and the place where his hand is cut.”

Audrey checked several times, pinching and pulling his split skin until blood ran over her fingertips. “Nothing.” A thought struck her. “He had his phone in his hand when he fell. Did you see where it landed? He has to have Jordan’s number in it, maybe she—”

Duke made a sound of disgust. “If you didn’t work and she did...” he started, not bothering to finish the sentence. Audrey had to admit that a similar thought had been running through her head, but she didn’t want to say so. Duke was still talking, half to himself, trying to pull out a thread of an idea. “Can’t be an apple in his throat; he wouldn’t be breathing. Same with a tightened corset.” He gave Audrey a helpless look. “Poisoned comb? Check his hair?”

“What?”

“I’m going through every enchanted sleep story I know, all right?” Duke fell back to his knees next to Nathan, putting a protective hand on his friend’s shoulder. “There has to be an answer,” he said, his other hand on his own head. “There’s _always_ an answer.”

At a loss for anything else to try, Audrey reached for her phone. It might not be traditional, but calling an ambulance might still be the best idea. They could at least keep Nathan stable until someone figured out how to wake him. She was digging in her pocket when she saw Duke go completely still. It was a stillness she recognized, that moment when the thing you were dodging thinking about hit you so hard you couldn’t ignore it any longer. His hand fell away from his face and he let out a long, slow, resigned breath, looking up at the ceiling with his eyes closed. “You didn’t see this,” he said, so quietly that Audrey barely heard him.

“Wh—” Audrey started, but the question hadn’t even completely formed in her mind before it was answered. The entire world seemed to go silent as Duke bent and pressed his lips against Nathan’s. It was a kiss that only lasted a moment, but it still seemed to contain a lifetime’s worth of love and tenderness, and above all else sorrow.

The silence was broken by a harsh gasp, followed by a burst of coughing as Nathan tried to sit up. Audrey leapt forward to throw her arms around him, her shock at this turn of events eclipsed by her relief at seeing him recovered. For his part, Duke leapt backwards to his feet with sharp grace, pulling back before Nathan could see him there.

“Audrey?” Nathan mumbled against her shoulder, sounding baffled but otherwise perfectly fine. He raised his head and put an arm around her to pat her back reassuringly, despite apparently not knowing what he was reassuring her about. “What happened?”

“You’re an idiot, is what happened,” Duke answered before Audrey could say anything. He was standing some distance away, his arms folded and his usual look of impatience at Nathan’s stupidity on his face. “Who hears that there’s a fairy tale Trouble in town and then stands that close to a spinning wheel?” Audrey didn’t think she was imagining the catch in his carefree voice.

A look at the shy adoration in Nathan’s eyes told Audrey that he was drawing the obvious conclusion about what had happened to him, and who had saved him. A look at the resigned pain deep in Duke’s eyes told her that he was going to _let_ Nathan draw the obvious conclusion. _Oh, Duke_.

She and Nathan both seemed to realize that she was still holding onto him at the same time. She pulled away, holding him at arm’s length to take a look at him. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he told her, looking himself over and brushing some dust off his shirt. “Like nothing happened.” He gave her a gently solemn look. “Thank you, Parker.”

Feeling like she’d led him on was even worse than feeling like she’d put a target on his back. “Hey, I look out for my partner,” she said, forcing a smile. She gave him a gentle thump on the shoulder. Come on, get up; we’ve got to get to the station.” She hesitated. “Although... I’m not sure if you should be driving.”

Nathan laughed as he got to his feet. “I’m fine,” he told her again. “It’s not like people relapse from being cursed, right?” He looked to Duke for confirmation.

A one-armed shrug. “If he says he’s fine, he’s fine.” Duke’s voice had gone completely flat.

“See? Right from the expert.” Nathan beamed a little more. “You two get going. I want to talk to Sandra one more time before I leave, but I’ll be right behind you.”

“Okay,” Audrey said. It was probably a good idea to get away from him for a little while, even just for the length of a drive back into town, and at least until she’d had a chance to talk to Duke alone. “Duke? You coming?”

The look Duke gave her said two things: _I know you want to talk to me_ and _I really don’t want to talk to you_. “It’s a nice day,” he said, still in that flat voice. “Think I might just walk.”

*

Duke hadn’t actually expected Audrey to let him go home alone. They didn’t have the time it would take him to walk back to town, or to find someone nearby who’d be willing to give him a ride. And it wasn’t like she was going to let this pass by without comment. It hadn’t escaped his notice that she was driving far more sedately than she had on their way out to the farm, keeping to a speed that would give her time to interrogate him. Duke would have preferred to hunker down in the farthest corner of the back seat, where it would be easier to ignore her, but apparently she’d guessed that much. His attempt to avoid the front door had been thoroughly squelched by the look on her face, not helped by the knowledge that Nathan had been still in earshot if she’d decided to press the issue. 

In the moment, trying not to look at her as she navigated the road as if this were any other drive, he hated her. It wasn’t fair and it wouldn’t last, but he ached to the core and someone had to take the blame. He cared far less about the pain itself than about the fact that she’d _seen_ it, that he’d been forced to reveal something that he’d never let slip to anyone before. And now that she knew... the sneer that curled his lip was involuntary. Audrey Parker was one hell of a liar when it suited her, but she wasn’t going to keep something like this from her partner. By this time tomorrow Nathan would know that Duke was in love with him, and that would be the end of... well, of everything.

“I’m sorry.” 

Audrey’s voice was so quiet and gentle that it cut through the noise in Duke’s head. “For what?” he snarled, cracked and brittle.

She didn’t rise to match his tone the way she had in the barn. “For seeing that. It’s pretty obvious that you wish I hadn’t.”

That took the wind out of his anger, leaving only the old, hollow sadness that had lived in his gut so long it was practically a friend. “Not like it’s your fault,” he mumbled, still resentful.

“I’m still sorry.”

Duke grunted a noncommittal acceptance, and some cynical voice in the back of his head started counting.

She lasted twelve seconds. “Do you want to talk about it?”

There was no amusement in his laugh. “What’s there to talk about? You already know the whole story.”

“I don’t think I do,” Audrey pressed. “And I’m worried that I need to.”

“Trust me, you already know more than you need to.”

“If it was anyone else, I’d agree with you. Your heartache, your business. But it’s _Nathan_.” Did she sound shocked at that? Jealous? Or maybe a little bit resigned? “Even ignoring the fact that I care about you both and I worry about you, it’s never just about you two when it’s about you two. It’s like you’re the entire insane history of this town wrapped up in two people, and any time something happens between you the rest of us get dragged along for the ride. I want to at least know what I’m getting into before this gets even more complicated.”

She was treating him like another problem she had to work around to fix Haven, and he couldn’t even bring himself to be mad at her for that. Hell, it wasn’t even like she was wrong about him and Nathan. He dug the heel of his hand into his forehead. “My life hasn’t been my own for a long time, has it?”

“Want to start a support group?” The mix of irony and sympathy in her voice made him turn to look at her for the first time since they’d gotten into the car; she caught his eye with half a smile. “You know I wouldn’t pry if I didn’t think it might be important.”

“Yeah, you would,” Duke said, turning away from her again. The word _cop_ rested on his tongue in the tone that made it the worst obscenity he knew. He let out a short breath, letting the word dissolve. He didn’t have the energy to start an actual fight.

Audrey didn’t try to deny it, but her shrug said ‘it’s not worth arguing about this right now,’ not ‘you’re right.’ “Look, just answer one thing for me right now,” she said when Duke continued not to respond. “We can leave the rest of this conversation until after we’ve dealt with the current problem, but I do need to know if it’s _related_ to the current problem.”

He held out for as long as he could, but the incomprehensibility of the question won him over. “What?”

“I need to know if you’re being affected by this Trouble,” Audrey said. “If what you’re feeling is part of some kind of story, it might be something we’re going to have to deal with before we can move on to rescuing Caroline and getting her to stop the fairy tales.” She turned away from the road just long enough to give Duke a gentle, probing look. “How long have you been in love with Nathan?”

Hearing her actually say it out loud turned Duke’s throat raw. “Audrey...”

“If you don’t know,” she persisted, “if it’s just something that _appeared_ in your head, like knowing about the library, then maybe... it might not be real.”

She didn’t believe her own theory. That much was clear in her voice, the hopeful desperation that came with an optimistic lie. She _wanted_ it to be true, whether to give Duke an out or because she was jealous – which didn’t make any sense; as far as Duke could tell she was the one who’d pushed Nathan away, and it wasn’t like Duke would have ever been viable competition anyway – but she knew better. And still she was willing to offer a fiction they could both cling to. _Of course it’s not real, Audrey. I just got pulled into the story because I was in the right place at the right time._

The easy lie caught in this throat and wouldn’t be dislodged. “I was fifteen,” he finally managed, the quiet words dropping like lead. He tried to block out the sound that Audrey made, a mix of sorrow and pity and that sad surprise that wasn’t really surprise. He hadn’t realized that he could sink even lower into his seat, his head falling against the window. “Maybe fourteen, I don’t know. I was already starting to figure out that it wasn’t just girls who were catching my eye, and Nathan... Nathan was one of the boys who did.” Another humorless laugh. “Took me longer than it should have to figure out that this one wasn’t just a crush. I was already falling in love before I knew what hit me. Probably couldn’t have avoided it even if I _had_ seen it coming.”

“Duke...”

The soft sadness in her voice made part of him want to tell her everything, every last nuance of what Nathan had meant to him and how much it had ached to pretend otherwise. The lonely, heartbroken kid he’d been at the time would have given his right arm just to talk to someone about it. The man he was now, older and theoretically wiser, still wanted to pour his heart out. “It’s not like—” _It’s not like I ever thought I had a chance._ He couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.

He tried again. “I got over it,” he said with forced calm. “Got the hell out of this town as soon as I could and let him drift away along with everything else here. I had a good life out there,” he added with some nostalgia. “Had some fun. Figured myself out a little. Fell in love again, not that that worked out.” He shook his head. It was still difficult to think about Evi; everything between her arrival in town and her death felt like a dream, more surreal than any supernatural event that had happened to him so far. “And then I came back here,” he concluded, slouching down again and putting his hand over his eyes. “And all the feelings I’d left behind were right here waiting for me. And they don’t seem to be going anywhere this time.”

Audrey let out a little sigh like she didn’t know how to respond. “God,” she finally said. “Duke, that’s...” _Tragic? Crazy? Kind of pathetic?_ He’d certainly thought all of those himself, sometimes all at the same time. Audrey abandoned the sentence entirely. “And you’ve never said anything?”

Duke could only grunt in response. She knew the answer, or at least it should be obvious. He was already starting to regret telling _her_ , even if he hadn’t had much choice in the matter once the damned fairy tale had taken over. He’d had years of experience in keeping his hurt over Nathan buried too deep to cause more than the occasional twinge, but now that it was uncovered again he knew he might never force it all the way back down.

“God,” Audrey tried again. “That’s... that’s gotta suck.”

It was such an understatement, but at the same time it was probably the best way Duke could think of to describe it. This was an ache that had been agony once upon a time, the kind of misery so deep that it was weirdly enjoyable. It had been the end of the world when he was fifteen, and a fondly wistful regret when he’d thought he’d left it and Nathan behind for good, and a punch in the gut when it had resurrected on him. In its current incarnation as a resigned, hollow sadness buried deep in his chest, it didn’t break his heart every day so much as it just... _sucked_. “It really does,” he said with a laugh that was almost real. “Thank you for noticing.”

There was a weight to the silence that fell, a tension in which Duke could practically _feel_ Audrey weighing the benefits of pressing on or leaving him alone. “What happens now?” she finally asked.

“We find Caroline, make her stop doing whatever she’s doing, and get on with our lives.”

“Come on.” If she wasn’t driving, Audrey would have been trying to stare him down. When he remained silent, she tried a different tack. “It’s not like I don’t get why you haven’t said anything,” she said. “You two are...” a vague wave of her hand. “Complicated.” Duke gave another almost-laugh at this latest understatement. “But you don’t have a lot of choice now, do you? He’s going to know, now.”

“Only if someone tells him.” Duke let that hang in the air, waiting for her reaction before deciding which way to jump. She knew, or at least had a vague idea, how much her silence was worth to him, and now it was just a matter of seeing how willing she was to take advantage of that. Duke was willing to counter with whatever threats, guilt, or bribery were necessary. He was also willing to beg, if it came down to it.

“You really think he’s not going to figure it out on his own? There were only two of us in that barn, and he knows I can’t affect this Trouble. He’s not stupid.”

“I know he’s not,” Duke said sharply, with a stab of instinctive loyalty. Even when their friendship had been at its lowest ebb he’d still been offended on Nathan’s behalf by the people who underestimated his intelligence because they didn’t understand his brevity or his subdued reactions. “But he’s got a massive, me-shaped blind spot. He’ll just _assume_ it was you and not bother to try thinking around that.”

“And you think I’m going to be okay with that?” Audrey countered.

“Is there some reason you wouldn’t be?” Duke asked archly. A part of him was genuinely and honestly curious, but mostly he was jumping at the opportunity to turn her unwelcome probing back on her.

She gave him a wry look that gave nothing away. “You think you two have a monopoly on ‘complicated’?”

Okay, new tack. “It’s not like it would necessarily _mean_ anything if it was you,” Duke suggested. There was desperation in his voice. Apparently he’d decided to go with begging. “Everyone knows you’re the person who solves Troubled problems. You stepped in, you solved a problem. That’s all you’d have to let him think.” _And he’d believe it, because it_ should _have been you._ This was their story, it always had been, and as much as he adored Audrey he thought he might never stop resenting her just a little for that.

“It’s never all he’d think,” Audrey said, half to herself. “Come on,” she said more clearly, going back to her quiet, cajoling voice. “Would you really want that? Nathan thinking that he’s only awake because I was in the right place at the right time? This is literally the kind of love they write fairy tales about; is it really fair to him not to tell him that someone loves him that much?”

It was something Duke had been trying not to think about. Not the idea that he was somehow depriving Nathan, which was insane, but the... mythic aspect of it. He had lain his heart bare, faced down the strange Troubled magic that held Nathan and declared _I love him, you can’t have him, he’s_ mine, and it had _worked_. The universe had sized him up and said _yes, your love is real, and it is_ enough. It was an amazing, validating feeling, and he didn’t want to examine it too closely for fear that he’d start trying to make it mean more than it did. “Still doesn’t change who he is,” he said, reminding himself as much as Audrey. “Or who I am.”

“You know that who you are and who he is aren’t as far apart as you both like to think.”

Duke gritted his teeth, his patience collapsing. “Just let it go, all right? We already know how this story ends; don’t make it harder on me than it already is.”

“I just don’t want either of you to be alone if you don’t have to be,” she said, sounding like she wasn’t really talking to him.

“You just worry about saving the town,” Duke said wearily. “Don’t go trying to save me, too.”

She gave him a wry look and shook her head, making a sound like his own mirthless laugh. “Okay. I’ve said my piece; I’ll leave you alone. And I won’t say anything to Nathan,” she added, and the relief that made Duke sag only lasted until she turned away from the road to fix him with a solid look. “But I won’t lie to him, either. When he starts asking questions...” She trailed off and shook her head.

“That’s the best promise I’m gonna get out of you, isn’t it?”

“It’s the only one I can make.”

Duke considered this. It wasn’t a bad deal, all things considered. Whatever Audrey thought, he was pretty sure that Nathan _wasn’t_ going to question the circumstances, and he could probably trust her to keep her word and not bring it up. He wanted to _hope_ he could trust her, anyway. “Guess I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

“Guess not.” A long silence before she turned to look at him again. “Are you gonna be okay?”

There it was again. That voice that genuinely cared and made him want to trust her with more than he probably should. He forced a smile. “Old wounds, Audrey. How much bite can they really have anymore?”

She made a noncommittal sound that told him she was willing to go along with that non-answer and turned her entire attention to the road, letting the conversation end. Duke sank back against the window again, staring off into the distance and trying not to remember that he was going to have to look Nathan in the eye again once they reached their destination. He tried to focus on the endless trees passing the side windows, keeping his focus away from the approaching town, but a flash of movement in the corner of his eye made him swing his head around to the front. A black streak in the sky, too low to be an airplane, moving over the town with cold, graceful purpose. “Audrey...”

“I see it,” Audrey breathed. She sounded amazed, almost reverent, and Duke couldn’t blame her. The dragon was barely more than a dark shape at this distance, but it was still awe-inspiring. “Do you know anything about this?”

He knew what she was asking. Was there information in the back of his head, put there by forces unknown and making his brain itch, that might offer a clue? “Not a thing,” he said. “I don’t think even a Trouble could shove an entire damn dragon into someone’s head without anyone asking questions. Except...”

“Except what?”

Duke ground the heel of his hand into his forehead. “Something’s trying to happen,” he grunted. The itchy, crawling feeling _burned_ now. “It’s like the story is rewriting itself. It’s like...” He trailed off and raised his head. “It’s bad,” he said, certainty in the pit of his stomach. “We’re not supposed to know about the dragon. If it’s coming out... things are getting worse.”

“ _What’s_ getting worse?”

“I don’t know. I just know... that we have to fix it.”

Audrey’s phone rang, startling them both. “Parker,” she barked after fumbling it on. “Yeah, Nathan, we see it, too,” she said, flicking an eyebrow at Duke. “It’s bad, I know. No, meet us at the police station still. I have a feeling we’re _really_ going to need that sword now. See you there.” She ended the call and took a more solid grip on the steering wheel, slamming the accelerator into the floorboards. “We really should have asked more questions about why the sword had _wings_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the story about the underground kingdom of the enchanted sheep prince is a real fairy tale. You can read a version of it with commentary by the inimitable Ursula Vernon [here](http://ursulav.livejournal.com/1492685.html).


	5. Happily, Ever?

Driving into town was more difficult than it should have been. Nobody was watching the road; everyone was watching the dragon. Some people had even abandoned their cars entirely, leaving them in the middle of the street so they could run away on foot or just get a better look. Even turning on the lights and sirens had little effect on the crowd that blocked Audrey’s progress towards the police station. People drifted out of her way eventually and immediately turned their attention back to the sky or their escape route. Many of the faces held the same look of dread that Duke’s had when she’d first asked him about the dragon, a creeping certainty that things had gone from bad to worse. Audrey remembered a handful of fantasy books that she had read in college where dragons could magically induce fear in anyone who looked at them. Maybe Caroline had read the same books in between her fairy tales.

Of course, it could also be much simpler. A magical effect wouldn’t have affected Audrey, and yet she was having a hard time focusing on anything else herself. The dragon didn’t have to be magical to be fascinating and terrifying; it just had to be a giant flying lizard. “What’s it doing now?”

“Still nothing,” Duke reported. His upper body was so far out of the window that he was practically sitting on the frame, head craned to watch the dragon. “It’s just... circling. Like it’s looking for something.” He pulled himself back inside and gave Audrey a grim look. She could still see the remnants of that dread in his face, though in his usual fashion he was pushing it aside to deal with the problem he couldn’t run away from. “It’s centering on the library,” he said, not that she’d needed the confirmation. “I can see the briars from here. I think they’re getting taller.”

“Hold that thought,” Audrey said. The two things were related, that much she was certain of, but she’d have to take a closer look at the situation to work out how. And that would have to wait until they could get to the station.

They arrived ahead of Nathan, and while they were waiting for him Audrey climbed onto the roof of one of the larger trucks in the parking lot to get a better view. Duke was right; the briars were definitely taller than they’d been this morning. They dwarfed all the surrounding buildings, and the library itself – which had already been taller than it should be this morning – was completely lost to view. It shouldn’t exist, and there shouldn’t even be _room_ for it to exist in. Audrey risked a look at the edge of the tangle, bracing for the same nausea that she’d gotten from looking along the garden wall at the two realities trying to exist side by side. It didn’t come, which was almost worse. The briar patch was making itself just as real as the surrounding town, possibly even more so. Duke’s earlier warning about the three-day deadline came back to her. It _was_ getting worse, and they didn’t have much time to fix it.

Her view was obscured by the bulk of the dragon, making its rounds and sweeping in between the library and the police station. It was a good distance away, but she could still hear the heavy _whump_ of its leather wings beating the air. It was a perfect storybook dragon, all muscle and glossy black scales, and it watched its surroundings with a keenness that went beyond animal intelligence. It was beautiful and terrifying, and Audrey thought she was starting to understand what it was looking for.

The truck rocked for a second as Duke climbed up beside her. He sucked in his breath at the sight of the dragon, and she felt him tense. “Duke,” she said quietly. “Try to get its attention.”

“ _What_?”

“I can’t get its attention, not with my immunity,” she explained.

“Why does _anybody_ have to get its attention? Isn’t that exactly the kind of thing we want to avoid?”

“It won’t come after you,” she promised. She wrapped a gentle hand around Duke’s arm. “Trust me. Please.”

The way Duke looked at her was something she didn’t think she’d ever forget, like he was weighing every interaction they’d ever had before deciding how to respond. “Cover your ears,” he finally said, his hand going to the whistle around his neck.

The sound was deafening, even with the warning. Ears ringing, Audrey watched the dragon raise its head, wisps of smoke curling from its snout. It veered away from its previous course and swept over them, darkening the sky and tying Audrey’s stomach in knots. _Oh, please let me be right_. She sidled in against Duke again as it dove towards them, making no sound but those heavy wingbeats. It tilted its head to study them with one large and bright eye as it passed overhead, then rose again with a dismissive flick of its tail and returned to its previous circling. Audrey’s knees went slack with relief, and she could feel Duke sag beside her.

“What the hell was that?” Nathan’s voice was unexpected enough to tear Audrey away from the dragon. He sounded like he wasn’t sure whether to be confused or frightened as he climbed into the bed of the truck. Out of the corner of her eye Audrey could see his own truck stopped haphazardly in the middle of the lot, as if he’d stopped it and jumped out of it in a hurry to try to defend them.

“It was her idea,” Duke said hurriedly. He had a hand out to help Nathan up onto the roof beside him, but he abruptly pulled it back and clenched it at his side, face shutting down. Nathan didn’t seem to notice. There was a lot he didn’t notice, apparently, and now Audrey was beginning to wonder how _she’d_ missed it all. All the time she’d spent wondering exactly what was going on between them, and ‘long-denied love’ had never even occurred to her. Especially in this town, where love that had somehow gone wrong seemed to be at the heart of almost everything, she should have seen it coming.

She pushed the thought away as Nathan pulled himself up on his own and Duke subtly shifted his weight to put as much distance as possible between them on the small roof. “Watch what it’s doing,” she said, tracing the dragon’s path in the air with her finger. “It’s just circling the library. There are people everywhere, but it’s not going after anyone. It came just close enough to us to get a good look at us, and it hasn’t even caused any property damage, as far as I can tell. It’s _watching_.”

“Like it’s looking for something,” Nathan said.

“No, like it’s looking _out_ for something,” Audrey countered. “It’s not hunting. It’s _patrolling_. It came out just far enough to see that Duke wasn’t a threat, then went back to staying close to the library.”

“It’s a defense system,” Duke said, starting to understand where she was going with this. “Like the briars.” He touched his forehead. “That’s what was getting worse.”

“You felt that, too?” Nathan asked.

Duke nodded. “Something kicked Caroline’s Trouble up another gear, and now there’s one more thing standing between us and stopping her.”

“You think she’s doing it on purpose?”

“Not like it matters at this point if she is or not. The story’s been set in motion; all we can do is see it through.” Duke turned to cast an eye at the sword. “Lucky you.”

Nathan turned to follow his gaze, looking at the stone with a mix of trepidation and longing. “What makes you so sure I’m the one?”

“It’s you,” Duke said flatly before Audrey could say anything. It was that same cold, resigned certainty that his voice had had during their conversation in the car, and he wasn’t looking at Nathan. Eventually he _did_ raise his head, turning to face Nathan like he couldn’t stand _not_ looking at him any longer. Something in his face softened so subtly that Audrey guessed she could only see it because she knew to look for it. He shook his head helplessly. “Of _course_ it’s you,” he said again, more tenderly this time.

Whatever other nuances Nathan was catching or missing in the situation, the sheer faith in Duke’s voice hit home. His expression was the same as Duke’s had been when Audrey called him a good man: stunned, humbled, and honored. He nodded silently and climbed off the truck. When his feet hit the ground he looked back up at Duke for a moment, his face thoughtful, before turning and heading for the police station.

Duke and Audrey exchanged glances. “He’s really willing to take my word for that,” Duke said quietly.

“He trusts you,” Audrey said. “He tells himself that he doesn’t, but he knows better.”

Duke made a little sound that said he didn’t believe her, but wished he did. “Come on,” he said, climbing down to follow Nathan. “I know you don’t want to miss this.”

There was so much more that Audrey wanted to say on the subject, but this wasn’t the time. Not that it ever _would_ be the time, in Duke’s opinion, and as bad as Audrey felt about picking at his wounds she felt like leaving them alone would do more harm. She’d been speaking from the heart when she’d said that Nathan needed to know that someone loved him that much, and if he couldn’t hear it from her... It was probably a selfish thing to do, trying to push someone else she trusted and cared about into pursuing Nathan just because she couldn’t, but was it really unforgivable if she truly thought there was a chance it might work out for them? Nathan obviously cared deeply for Duke, despite his frequent insistence to the contrary. There was a spark there, and they should both have the chance to see if it was the kind that might be kindled into love, rather than the anger they’d both held on to for so long. A bitter voice in the back of her mind reminded her that she and Nathan should have been allowed the same chance, but she forced it into a corner with all the other things she didn’t want to think about. Better to be happy for someone who might have a chance than to resent her own lack of one.

Nathan was waiting for them at the stone, watching the sword like he expected it to move on its own. There were a handful of officers watching him through the station window now, but nobody was willing to go outside and possibly interfere. Audrey saw him give a little shrug, a sort of ‘here goes nothing’ gesture. The world seemed to hold its breath as he reached out his hand, and continued to hold it as he hesitated, freezing just inches from the hilt. _Come on_ , Audrey thought. _You can do this. You’re the hero of this story_.

Again, Duke beat her to the encouraging words before she could say them out loud. “For god’s sake, Nathan, don’t you _dare_ chicken out on this one.”

It might have been crude, but it was effective. With a long-suffering glare at Duke, Nathan gritted his teeth and grabbed the sword. It slid from the stone with no resistance, moving so smoothly that Nathan had to take a step back to adjust for the amount of force he’d put into the gesture. There should have been a light streaming down from the sky as he raised the blade, or swelling music from somewhere. Instead there was just the whisper of the normal sounds of the world seeping back into it, and a tiny but heartfelt sigh from Duke.

Audrey couldn’t blame him. She’d always considered Nathan handsome, but now he was a storybook prince, poised and statuesque. “Wow,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant. “That, uh. That suits you.” Beside her, Duke managed a mute nod.

Nathan gave her that sheepish little-boy look that he always got when someone complimented him. “You think so?” He gave the sword an experimental swing. “Probably not too practical for everyday use, but...”

“And it’s not fighting you?” she asked, telling herself to dial back the blatant admiration.

“No?” Nathan said quizzically. He laid the blade flat across his other hand and examined it, testing its weight. When he opened his right hand Audrey could see that it was unmarked, with none of the welts it had raised on Duke. “It’s...” He hesitated. “It _wants_ to be here with me,” he finally said. Now he was smiling at the sword, like it was the one that had complimented him. “Let’s go see what it can do.”

The sound that rose then was what a jet engine might sound like if it could scream in rage. It reverberated through the ground and then through Audrey’s chest, rising in pitch and intensity as it came closer. She spun around to face the library and the dragon, which was now streaking towards them far faster than something of that size should be capable of, wreathed in plumes of orange fire. Audrey’s knees did give out this time, and she had to steady herself against the side of the police station.

Duke had a white-knuckled grip on the handrail of the steps, looking paler than Audrey had ever seen him. “Audrey?” he said weakly, some of his usual bravado trying to come through. “I think it’s decided we’re a threat now.”

*

The sword had a weight to it. Nathan couldn’t feel it in its resistance to his grip or the way his muscles had to work to move it, of course, but he could feel the weight of it as a presence throughout his body and mind. It had decided to let him carry it, and it was going to make sure he knew what a big deal that was. He just hoped he wouldn’t fumble too badly when the time came to use it.

He had also hoped that the time wouldn’t come quite so soon. When the roar started, instinct tightened his grip on the hilt. The dragon was coming for him, he knew with all certainty, to eliminate the sword and whoever was carrying it. It would go through anyone and anything that got in its way without hesitation. And from its current angle of attack, ‘anyone and anything’ included Duke and Audrey, still frozen with fear just a few feet away. The fear had its claws in Nathan, too, but the sword seemed to offer some degree of protection. Or maybe it had tapped into the part of him that had always been ready to defend the two of them with his life and was just preventing anything else from stopping him.

Whatever it was, something pushed him past the initial burst of terror and pushed him forward, even if he did stumble the first few steps as he edged past Duke and Audrey. He had to get away from them, and get everyone else out of harm’s way. Not taking his eyes off the approaching dragon, he flicked on his radio. “Laverne, evacuate the station. Get everyone out the back and as far away from the library as possible.” He turned it off without waiting for a response and turned back to his friends. “Get out of here.”

“No way.”

“Not gonna happen.” Both of them still looked terrified, but they were presenting a unified front, following him as he went back to the parking lot to try and get out into the open. It was really the only response Nathan had expected from them, but he’d still had to try to keep them out of harm’s way. A sharp gesture did at least keep them from following him up onto the truck they’d been watching from earlier. He didn’t need Duke to tell him that dragons needed to be met by formal challenge. 

The entire sky went dark as the dragon came closer, its wings beating the air into a hurricane. It dropped to the ground in the parking lot with a thunder that shook the earth and nearly knocked Nathan off his feet, cars crunching under its claws. It stood just a few yards away from Nathan, lowered its head at him, and let out a warning growl.

It was big. That was as specific as Nathan could be about its size; it might have been just a little bit larger than a house or just a little bit smaller than an aircraft carrier. It was definitely too big to fit in the parking lot, despite the fact that it was there. _It’s exactly the size it needs to be to fill all available space_ , Nathan found himself thinking, not sure if it was just his best guess or additional knowledge that the story had dropped in. It was definitely big enough to fill all the available space in his perception. Its cold, bright eyes had him pinned under an intelligent and wary gaze, waiting for him to make his move. It hissed, and a small plume of flame rose from the corner of its mouth.

Nathan wasn’t sure what to do next. He held out his hands, the left one palm out and the right one bringing the sword up across his body. “Easy,” he said warningly, as if he was trying to warn down a wary dog.

The dragon’s head jerked to follow the movement of his hands, serpentine neck folding back with another hiss. It wasn’t watching him, it was watching the sword. And it didn’t want to get any closer to it than it had to.

Encouraged by this, Nathan jumped down from the truck to the ground without looking away from the creature, grateful that he couldn’t feel what that move had probably done to his knees. The dragon twitched back again before pushing forward into an aggressive crouch, making small noises to itself. Then it lunged, uncoiling like a snake and diving for him with an open maw. Someone screamed Nathan’s name in terror as he dove to the side, waving the sword wildly.

The scream was drowned out by a shriek of pain and rage. The dragon’s teeth snapped together with a sound like an iron gate as it pulled back, shaking its head. A trail of dark blood flowed from a gash on its muzzle. Nathan had managed a hit, but judging by the volume of the growl as the dragon dropped back into its attack position the only thing he had managed to do was anger it.

The creature roared again, aiming a tight jet of cherry-red fire at Nathan, too quick for him to dodge. He raised the sword to block it, aware of the futility of the gesture, and discovered that it wasn’t futile at all. The blade split the flames, sending them splashing harmlessly around him and dimming them to a weak yellow. There was a crackling sound that might have been the edges of his clothing scorching, but as far as he could tell the fire had no other effects. 

The dragon huffed out a plume of indignant smoke as it pulled back, reassessing its attack strategy once again. It snaked its neck around, spitting a few experimental fireballs at Nathan from different angles, all of which the sword blocked. With a frustrated snarl it lunged for him again with teeth and talons, grabbing for him with a claw large enough to wrap around an oak tree. Nathan swung the sword again, this time opening furrows across the dragon’s knuckles. The next lunge was sloppier, fueled by the creature’s fresh pain and anger, but the dragon returned to caution at the last moment and pulled its head back, the sword whistling through empty air just in front of its nose. Nathan turned the slash into a stab, taking a massive step forward and aiming for the underside of the dragon’s chin while it tried to recover its stance. The sound of heated air surrounding him in a rush like a furnace stopped him, however, and he was able to pull the sword back up just in time to deflect another fireball.

Both of them fell back, watching each other and looking for an opening to make a move and not finding it. Nathan wasn’t sure how long he could stay lucky in blocking the dragon’s fire if he closed in, and the dragon was clearly not willing to let the sword take another bite out of it. The entire world narrowed down to the two of them, the only sounds their breathing and the occasional crunch of metal as the dragon shifted its weight on another car, the only light coming from the orange tongues of fire around the dragon’s snout and their silver reflections in the sword. It was a stalemate, and Nathan couldn’t see how to break it.

Something high and shrill cut into the standoff, a chattering scream that came from somewhere behind Nathan and was coming closer. Something small and grey whizzed by Nathan, using his free arm as a springboard, and launched itself at the dragon’s face. The high scream was drowned out by one much lower and louder, the dragon reacting in blind fury to this new assault. It shook its head, trying to dislodge the grey blur that Nathan now recognized as a squirrel, clawing at the dragon’s eyes and snout and screeching what Nathan was sure were unrepeatable obscenities in its native language.

This was too much for the dragon. It reared back and spread its wings, still shaking its head, Snowfall’s tail waving wildly but his body clinging fast to the dragon’s face. Trying to get away from this new attack, the dragon launched itself into the air, the wind from its wings knocking Nathan off his feet. Their mutual screams of fury faded as the dragon gained altitude and distance, still flying erratically as it tried to escape.

Audrey’s hand on Nathan’s arm brought the rest of the world back. “Are you okay?” she asked breathlessly.

It took him a moment to respond. “Yeah, far as I can tell,” he said. He looked back to the sky. “Was that Duke’s squirrel?”

“He came out of nowhere,” Duke said, not even bothering to argue this time that it wasn’t _his_ squirrel. He shook his head. “Takes care of whatever he thinks he owed me,” he said quietly.

Nathan suppressed the sudden twist of guilt in his stomach. Duke looked like he’d lost a friend, but there wasn’t time to offer his sympathies now. “Come on,” he said, motioning them both towards his truck. “If it’s distracted, it’s not guarding the library.” Opening the driver’s side door, he almost jumped in before remembering the sword in his hand. Strange how natural it seemed. After a moment of uncertainty about what to do with it, he laid it across the dash so he could keep his hands on the wheel, then climbed into the truck.

Audrey climbed in right beside him, but Duke was staring at the sword and looking thoughtful. “Keep the engine running,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He took off at a quick jog towards his own truck, still parked on the street across from the station. Parked illegally, of course, but that had at least kept it out of the dragon’s path. He dug in the back for a moment before coming back with a machete in one hand and an axe in the other. He tossed them into Nathan’s back seat and climbed in after them. “Let’s go.”

Nathan pulled out of the parking lot immediately, but narrowed his eyes at Duke in the rearview mirror. “It’s weird enough that you have _one_ of those in your truck...” he started.

“I’m sure I had a good reason at the time,” Duke returned evenly. “Just be glad I don’t clean it out as often as I should. If we’re going to be trying to push through the briars, I don’t think one little sword is going to do it.” He passed the axe to Audrey in the front seat. She looked as doubtful as Nathan had, but took a firm grip on it anyway.

And Duke did have a point. The story Nathan remembered from his childhood – or that Caroline’s Trouble was telling him he remembered – was absolutely clear that the sword was the necessary thing for getting to the library, but the sword itself didn’t seem confident the briars were going to part around it as easily as the dragon’s fire had. It would be a bad idea to dismiss any potential advantage out of hand. And probably a worse idea to think too hard about how he knew what a sword thought. He nodded. “We can use as much firepower as we’ve got,” he said. “Just be careful. We don’t know how much damage anything other than the sword is going to do.”

There weren’t any other cars on the road, or at least none with drivers. Those who had been able to overcome the dragon’s influence enough to drive away had already done so, and the rest had abandoned their cars to flee on foot. Nathan wove around the empty vehicles as deftly as he could, but a few blocks away from the library the entire road was blocked by a dozen different cars that had apparently run into each other and been abandoned. “Looks like we’re walking,” he said, getting his truck as far off the street as he could and cutting the engine. Audrey and Duke climbed out after him, the three of them handling their weapons with varying levels of comfort. Audrey kept twisting the axe in her grip, trying to work out the best way to carry it. Duke, of course, walked like he wandered down the street carrying a machete every day of his life. Nathan tried to imitate his gait, letting his body balance out the new weight of the sword on his right side, and winced as the blade scraped against the asphalt, gouging it. The sword seemed to growl its disquiet in his head. He eventually settled for holding it across his body, the grip in his right hand and the blade resting loosely on his left. It was inelegant, and left him convinced that he was going to trip and decapitate himself, or at least lose a few fingers, but at least he could walk without tripping over it.

The tangle of briars around the library was even bigger than Nathan remembered it, if he really did remember it at all. The black and green stems with their curved thorns were right up against the line that marked the safe zone now, and the hissing as they writhed filled the air. He took a few steps towards them, raising the sword. The hissing became even louder, and the edge of the tangle began to pulse outward, but nothing tried to grab for him the way it used to when he’d test his luck as a kid. There was an experimental darting motion from one tendril, much like the test charges the dragon had attempted. The briars knew the sword, too, and unlike the dragon they weren’t willing to challenge it head-on.

Nathan wasn’t much more willing to challenge _them_. He could tell by the briars’ reaction that an attack would have an effect, but where would he even _start_? The tangle was like a solid wall, the brambles as thick as his arm knotted together in a dense cluster. There was nowhere for him to get the sword in to swing it; everything was blocked off by everything else.

This was suddenly a secondary concern when a now-familiar roaring split the sky again. The dragon had apparently shaken its assailant loose and was coming back for another pass, and it was coming in from behind them. The problem was all too clear to Nathan: Turn the sword away from one, and the other would instantly attack his undefended side and whoever was on it. He risked a look at the dragon, which was already close enough for him to see the blood glistening on its scratched face. It was coming in low, folding its wings to streak down the street between the buildings, and as it came it opened its mouth. The dry furnace rumble of its throat made Nathan’s decision for him. Whatever the briars might do to them, it would still take more time than fire would. Taking a deep breath, he turned and ran between Audrey and Duke, putting himself between them and the dragon, and raised the sword.

Nathan could _smell_ the heat of the air around him as the flames split again, creating a protected wedge that he prayed was wide enough to include Duke and Audrey. The dragon came so close he thought it had decided to ignore the danger of the sword and take a bite out of him anyway, but it pulled up at the last minute in a deafening rush of fire. When the roar of superheated air finally died away, to his great relief Nathan could hear sounds of human movement behind him and smell a reek of acrid smoke. There was clearly some kind of struggle going on, but the other two didn’t sound injured. “You two all right?” he asked without turning around, still trying to track the dragon’s movements in anticipation of a second pass.

“Yeah,” Duke said shortly, the word coming out as more of a grunt of effort. “Little help, here?”

Nathan risked a backwards glance. Directly behind him, the briars were on the attack. Duke’s machete and Audrey’s axe were keeping them away from his unprotected back, but didn’t appear to be doing any real damage, the blades only deflecting the thorns rather than cutting them. To either side, however, the flames that had splashed harmlessly around the sword’s protective wedge had carved smoking corridors about a foot wide into the solid wall of thorns. The burned plants hung limp and unresponsive, making no effort to close these gaps. It was the opening he’d been looking for. “Keep them busy for a minute; I think I can get us in.” Taking a deep breath, he dodged to the side and made a sideways slash into the far edge of the hole to his right.

There was an unnatural shriek as the briars drew back from the blade’s reach, but a few didn’t make it in time. The sword went through them with little resistance, and the cut briars stopped moving as abruptly as the burned ones had. Another few strokes widened the gap enough that a person could squeeze through it. “Come on,” Nathan said, pushing Audrey through the gap and ushering Duke to follow her. Continuing to strike sideways to keep the gap widened, he followed after the two of them into the darkness of the briar thicket.

The tunnel of burned plants was full of choking smoke, making it difficult to navigate. Here and there the end of a briar still smoldered, but nothing was still seriously burning and the damage hadn’t spread any further than the original places that were touched by the dragon’s fire. _So much for just burning our way through_ , Nathan thought, remembering the last time he’d had to force his way through a wall of living plants. Those roots had been easier. They hadn’t fought _back_.

Not that these were at the moment, either. He had expected the briars to dive for them out of the edges of the tunnel, trying to seal it off again, but nothing moved; the passageway remained clear. “Did that kill them?”

“Enough of them,” Audrey said. She pointed to a spot where the tunnel wall was bulging outward as if something was pounding at it. “The burned ones are packed densely enough that the live ones can’t push past them. It’s like a cauterized wound.”

“And it won’t get better if you pick at it,” Nathan said. “Knock any of the dead ones loose and you leave an opening for the live ones. Everyone stay away from the sides.”

“What happens when we get to the end of the burn?” Duke asked quietly.

“We’ll figure it out when we get there,” Nathan said firmly.

A short distance in, before they reached the end of the burned patch, the briars abruptly thinned from an impassable wall to a dense forest. The thicket was easier to walk through now, and dim light filtered in between the thorns, but without the protective barrier of plants burned by dragon fire or cut by the sword there was nothing blocking the live ones from attacking. Without discussing it, the three of them automatically fanned out into a triangle, with Nathan in front to clear a path and Duke and Audrey behind him to block attacks from the sides. Even though the other weapons couldn’t cut through the briars the way the sword did, they did seem to be causing the plants pain and making them hesitant to attack. The briars still had the advantage of numbers though, and within a few minutes all three of them had collected a variety of scratches and deeper cuts.

An occasional wave of darkness blotted out the dim light, accompanied by the heavy sound of wing beats the dragon still trying to reach them but not willing or able to break through the thorns. These occasional passes seemed to be the only thing breaking up the journey, which was starting to feel to Nathan like it had lasted endless and unchanging hours.

A frustrated roar from the dragon finally broke the eerie silence, followed by Audrey snapping out, “Just how thick _is_ this thing?” her breathing heavy with effort. She was the least injured of the three of them – like every other fairy tale element the briars weren’t attacking her directly – but she had taken her share of hits as they shot past her to attack the other two. “Are we even still going in the right direction?”

“Don’t ask me,” Duke grunted. He was covered in sweat and blood, and his hair was coming loose from its ponytail. _When did he tie his hair back?_ The thought pushed into Nathan’s head as he noticed the return of Duke’s familiar profile for the first time, feeling like something that had been out of place had finally clicked back. It must have been some time around when Nathan woke up in the barn, but then, he reminded himself, he hadn’t exactly been looking at Duke at the time.

“We are,” Nathan said, much to his own surprise. Apparently while he’d been distracted by other matters he’d actually been trying to answer her question.

“How do you know?” Audrey asked, shooting a dubious look at him in between fending off attacks.

“Because the sword knows,” Nathan said, not realizing that it was the truth until he said it.

“Of course it does,” Duke muttered, mostly to himself. Nathan wasn’t sure if the tone was agreeing or exasperated, or Duke’s patented blend of the two.

Audrey slashed at another encroaching briar, conceding with a tilt of her head. “Guess I can’t argue with that.”

Nathan risked another sideways look at Duke, and at his ponytail. The voice in his dream... it had warned him, or maybe just advised him, that there was something he wasn’t looking at properly. Was this a hint at what it had been trying to tell him? What _else_ wasn’t he seeing about Duke?

Consideration turned into brief panic as he caught sight of the briar that was streaking in on Duke’s blind side. With a grunt Nathan caught Duke by the back of his shirt, pulling him close and out of its reach. The thorns that would have gutted Duke instead streaked past him, though not without tearing through his shirt and leaving a long streak of red across his ribs.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Duke grunted, his breath coming in a hiss of pain. He continued leaning against Nathan, trying to get his breath back, and forced his hand away from his side, assessing the wound. “I’m okay. It’s not deep, just ugly.”

Nathan was less certain of that. A dark stain was spreading rapidly from the tear in Duke’s shirt. “You’re bleeding,” Nathan said unnecessarily.

“So are you,” Duke said, suddenly tense as he realized how close he was to the various cuts littering Nathan’s forearms. He jerked away from Nathan, checking his own exposed skin with trepidation. Nathan tensed up himself, waiting for one of the blood spots on Duke’s exposed forearms to disappear and turn his eyes silver. When a long moment passed in which nothing happened, Duke let out a heavy breath of relief. “It’s fine,” he said past Nathan to Audrey, who had been watching this incident with concern but was reluctant to leave her post on Nathan’s other side. “Only blood on me is mine.”

 _Would any of mine help?_ The words formed in Nathan’s mind and almost came out of his mouth before he recognized them. The briars had left him with exposed blood to spare, and if a little extra strength might get them through the thicket faster... He shook the thought away. Duke’s weapon still wouldn’t be any match for the briars, no matter how strong he was, and Nathan wasn’t entirely sure he was willing to make that offer just yet anyway. “You sure you’re all right?” he finally asked.

"Yeah," Duke said shortly, straightening up with a wince. He gave Nathan a speculative look, apparently catching something strange in his expression. “Are _you_?”

Nathan nodded, waving the thought away. “I’m fine.” He tightened his grip on the sword; it was humming to him in a way that sounded like anticipation. “Keep moving. I think we’re almost there.”

Now that he knew the sword was telling him which way to go, it seemed to Nathan that they made faster progress. Before too long, there was a darkness ahead of them that seemed thicker than the briars, which started to resolve into the shape of an enormous clapboard wall. There was a stretch of wall that the briars seemed to be avoiding entirely, a patch with HAVEN PUBLIC LIBRARY painted about eight feet off the ground. The wall was otherwise featureless except the overnight return slot, complete with the little friendly plaque giving the library’s operating hours and the reminders about overdue fines. The door that should have been there was absent, leaving no evidence that it had ever existed. “Well. Now what?” Nathan said, half to himself.

Duke shrugged with one shoulder, the other arm still holding his wounded side. “Open sesame?” he hazarded. When that produced no response, he eyed the sword. “That thing’s gotten us this far. Think it’s the answer this time?”

Nathan didn’t think so, but the sword didn’t seem to object to the idea. Hefting the sword, he pulled back and took a swing at the wall, trying to slice through it the way he had the briars. Rather than the expected heavy thud of metal against wood the impact rang like a church bell, echoing like it was announcing their presence, but not leaving even a scratch on the wall. It also rebounded hard enough that he could hear his teeth clicking together.

Audrey winced in sympathy. “You okay?”

Nathan released the sword and gave his right arm a shake. He didn’t seem to have done any real damage, but he was still glad he couldn’t feel that.

“Looks like you got its attention, at least,” Duke said, nodding towards the building. Streaks of gold light were streaking from beneath the slats of the wall, chasing each other across its surface and racing like flames running down a fuse, twisting and merging until they formed clear words: _This door is open to all who hold the keys to the kingdoms within_.

The three of them stood in silence for a moment, trying to decipher the riddle, before Audrey’s mouth formed a sudden _Oh_ of understanding. “We’re dealing with a librarian,” she reminded them.

That last piece of the puzzle fell into place for Duke and Nathan at the same time. Nathan reached into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet and flipping it open. “Is this what you’re looking for?” he asked the wall, holding up his library card. Beside him, Duke had done the same thing.

With a crackling sound, the lights burst out from the words and flowed down the wall to outline a door that was far bigger and more ornate than the one the library usually had. It creaked open just a crack, not far enough for Nathan to see inside. “Stay between us,” he warned Audrey. “If the door disappears and leaves you locked out...”

“For once it’s a good thing this Trouble doesn’t recognize me,” she said, half to herself. “I don’t have a library card,” she explained when Nathan gave her a questioning look.

“And you’ve been here _how_ long?” Nathan couldn’t help responding. Beside him, Duke just gave her an incredulous look.

“One crisis at a time, all right?” Audrey said dryly.

Nathan nudged the door wider with his shoulder, keeping the sword raised in one hand and holding his library card up like a shield in the other. He was sure he looked as silly as he felt, but he was taking no chances. As the three of them stepped into the room the door behind them slammed with a very final sound, causing them to turn around just in time to see the lights disappearing into a wall that was, from this side, made of giant stone blocks. Without the lights to outline it, the door was already beginning to fade. Duke, bringing up the rear, gave a shout and grabbed the door handle. It dissolved into a cluster of sparks in his hand, leaving him pushing on a blank wall and swearing expressively. Whatever happened next, nobody was getting out of here until they solved this Trouble.

Nathan looked around the room., trying to take it in. In the library as he remembered it, the entrance was a small room with just enough space for the checkout desk and a few shelves holding new releases and popular books. This was the entrance hall to a _castle_. Stone walls stretched practically out of sight to a vaulted ceiling, the entire place lit by an ambient glow that resembled firelight more than fluorescent lighting, and the bookshelves were made of heavy wood rather than the usual utilitarian metal. And yet it was still recognizable as the library. The carpeting, however plush it might be now, was the same municipal-looking speckled blue, and the tapestries lining the walls were just woven versions of the usual flyers for local events and posters of celebrities holding books and advocating literacy.

“Caroline Harper?” Audrey called into the vast emptiness. “Haven P.D.; we’re here to help you.”

In the library as it usually was, there was a gap between the lobby’s far walls that opened up into the children’s library. Here it was a doorway, and behind it the edge of a curved stone staircase was barely visible. Little footsteps were pounding down the stairs at speed, followed by someone calling out, “Finally!”

The short, plump woman who appeared in the doorway stopped just long enough to take a good look at them, then threw herself at Nathan with an enthusiastic hug, long hair flying out behind her. “Your friend told me you were coming. I knew the sword would find someone!”

Nathan wheezed briefly at the collision, and put his hand on her shoulder to gently push her away. “Caroline Harper?”

“Yes, and I’ve been trapped in here for _days_ ,” she said, pushing past him. Her voice was soft now that she wasn’t shouting, almost a whisper. “But now you’re here, and you’ve got the sword, and we—” She cut off abruptly at the sight of the blank wall where the door had been. “How did you get _in_? And how do we get out?”

“There was a door,” Nathan said helplessly. “We tried to hold it, but...”

Caroline shook her head, an expression of despair crawling onto her face. “Oh no. This isn’t good. I thought that once someone got through the briars it would all be over.”

 _So did I_ , Nathan thought grimly. He gave Duke a look. “Any ideas?” Duke shook his head silently.

“Caroline,” Audrey said gently, and Nathan stepped aside. This was her territory. “I’m Audrey Parker. Do you know who I am?” Caroline shook her head. “I’m here to help people like you,” Audrey continued. “You might not realize it, but you have a Trouble. Everything that’s happening to the library, the briars and the sword and the dragon, are all because of something you’re doing.”

“I know,” Caroline said, looking pained. “I didn’t know I was Troubled before, but I know I’m the one doing all this. I just don’t know how to stop it.”

Audrey blinked, caught off guard by this deviation from the usual pattern. “You know?”

“Of course I do,” Caroline said. “How could I not know?” She was wearing a short cardigan, and now she shrugged it off to reveal the tattoo that wrapped around one upper arm. Broad wings, claws that gave the illusion of clinging to her skin, and a face that was burned – no, not burned, _ingrained_ in Nathan’s mind. “That’s my dragon out there.”

“Well then, call it off!” Nathan said, much sharper than he’d intended. The memory of the terror he’d forced down as he looked the dragon in the eye rose afresh, knotting his throat.

“You think I haven’t tried?” Caroline returned, sounding annoyed and impatient. “I’ve been calling to it every time it passes by, trying to get it to let me out and leave everyone alone. I know it understands, but it’s not listening.”

“You’ve been calling it?” Duke repeated. “How? There aren’t any windows or doors in here.”

“There’s a window in the tower. That’s where I’ve been staying most of the weekend.”

“There’s a tower?”

“There is now.” Caroline sighed. “You’d better come up. I can explain everything I know up there, and maybe together we can figure out how to get out of here.” She paused, and noticed their torn and bloodied clothing for the first time. “And maybe I can get you patched up,” she added.

“I’m fine,” Duke said automatically. It was like a reflex.

“Duke...” Audrey started warningly.

Caroline’s entire demeanor changed. “You’re Duke?” She drew back from them, her voice sounding like her heart had just dropped into her stomach. “Duke Crocker?”

“Okay, just hold on a minute,” Duke said, raising his hands disarmingly. He still has the machete in his hand, a fact that he realized too late. He dropped it to the ground. “This isn’t...” He didn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence.

“I know what this is,” Caroline said. “What _he_ is. Doreen told me all about that family.” The look she gave Audrey was full of anger and hurt. “You said you were here to help me.”

“We are,” Audrey said. “And so is he. Whatever you’ve heard about Duke, he’s not what you think.”

“How do you _know_?” Caroline demanded. “How can you possibly trust him, knowing what he is?”

“Because what he is matters less than who he is.” Nathan’s quiet words surprised even him. But they were true, however much he might deny them to himself. He looked down thoughtfully, then raised his head and the sword. “This sword chose me, right?” He waited for Caroline’s nod. “It picked someone worthy. A decent person. Someone you can trust.” Nathan wasn’t sure how much of that really applied to him, but as long as the _story_ thought it did... “And it wouldn’t be too pleased if I lied while I was holding it, would it?” When Caroline shook her head, Nathan took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the sword hilt, letting its thorns bite into his hand as they willed. “Duke is a thief and a liar and a pain in my ass,” he said. “But I trust him with my life. And yours.” He switched hands, holding his palm up so Caroline could see it was unmarked. “He won’t hurt you.”

Caroline’s eyes darted back and forth between Nathan and Duke, her mouth set in a fine line. Finally she nodded. “Come on, all of you.”

Nathan didn’t relish the thought of looking at Duke. When he finally did, Duke was staring at him, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. He was silent for a long time, his face unreadable, before he shook his head and turned to follow Caroline up the stairs.

The stairs were made of the same stone as the hall below, and they curved around it in a wide circle. The walls were lined with the same poster/tapestries, and shelves at regular intervals contained what Nathan realized after picking up a few books out of curiosity was the biography section. “It’s not actually that bad in here,” Caroline was saying. She ducked into a doorway that was hidden by one of the tapestries and came out with a first-aid kit. “The lights and the heat are working, there’s running water in the bathrooms, and there’s always food in the break room. It’s just the Internet and the phones that aren’t working.”

“Nothing that will let you contact anyone outside,” Audrey said. “Something wants to keep you isolated in here.”

“And a dragon and an angry hedge weren’t enough?” Duke said quietly.

Caroline glared at him. She was still staying as far away from him as possible, but Nathan’s word that he was harmless seemed to have satisfied her for now. “The dragon _should_ be harmless,” she said. “This tattoo was supposed to be... like a friend. A little guardian I could imagine watching over me when I was alone at college.” She looked embarrassed. “I know how weird it sounds.”

“It doesn’t at all,” Audrey said comfortingly. “It actually makes a lot of sense. Your dragon hasn’t hurt anyone. It’s been watching over you. It didn’t even come after us until Nathan got the sword and we came here.”

“No, that doesn’t make any sense,” Caroline corrected. “You were coming to save me. It shouldn’t have tried to stop you.”

“Unless it thinks this is the only place it could protect you,” Nathan said. “It wants to keep you safe, but it also doesn’t want you to  
leave.”  
Caroline’s eyes were wide. “I still don’t understand why it would do that.”

“You’re going to have to tell us everything,” Audrey said. “Starting at the beginning. Starting back at the fire.”

That made Caroline look even paler. “Okay,” she said. Her voice was even softer now, and Nathan could hear a faint hoarseness to it. “When we can sit down. I’ll tell you everything.”

Eventually the staircase opened up into a bright tower room, lit by sunlight. It was the children’s library, transformed in the same way that the rest of the building had been but with its bright colors and inviting shapes untouched. The sunlight, Nathan realized after a moment, was an illusion; though there were windows they were choked by briars. A few of the tapestries had been pulled down and laid out in a corner, evidently providing Caroline with a place to sleep. One of them had been crumpled up into a little nest, and at the moment it was home to a little lump of grey-brown fur.

“Snowfall?” Duke dropped to the floor, putting an uncertain hand on the squirrel’s head. “How did you...?”

“The briars will open up for me a little if I ask,” Caroline said. “Just enough for me to get a little air and try to talk to the dragon. Your squirrel must have gotten shaken off somewhere near the tower, and when I heard him shouting I got the window open and brought him in. I did say that your friend told me you were coming,” she added. “He’s a little singed, but he’ll be all right after he gets some rest.”

There was a tiny cough. The squirrel rolled over and fixed one beady eye on Duke. “We’re even,” he said hoarsely.

Duke’s grin was bright and unreserved. “Yeah, we are. Thanks, little guy.”

“Well, sit down,” Caroline said, gesturing to the floor. “I’d offer you a chair, but...”

Audrey let out a little giggle. The plastic chairs and tables usually found in this area had turned into dark wood and multicolored upholstery, but hadn’t changed their size. The effect was like being in a high-end playhouse. The way the three of them ended up sitting, in a half-circle with Caroline in the center, brought to mind a children’s story hour. The effect was ruined by the smell of disinfectant as Caroline opened the first-aid kit and passed around bandages and antiseptics. Nathan didn’t feel quite comfortable letting go of the sword just yet, and it took him some time before he figured out how to rest it comfortably across his knees while he tended to the scratches on his arms.

“Okay,” Audrey said once they were settled. She had already addressed her own minor injuries and was helping a bare-chested Duke clean and dress the wound across his side. “It’s time to tell us your story.”

Caroline exhaled. “It’s like you said, I guess. It started with the fire. It wasn’t a bad one, just a stray spark in my garage, but there was some spilled paint between me and the door. It caught fire and I was trapped there for a while. Long enough for the smoke to get into my lungs.”

Nathan nodded his understanding at the hoarseness of her voice, which was becoming more pronounced. “And you had to take some time off of work until you could talk again,” he said.

“It’s getting better,” she said. “The doctor says I’m going to make a full recovery. But I’m not there yet. As you can probably tell,” she added somberly. “I can’t speak loudly enough to catch the kids’ attention, or for long enough to do a full shift. And I _miss_ it,” she added, fierceness in her quiet voice. “That’s why I came here on Friday afternoon. I thought I could at least do some after-hours work, paperwork and shelving and prepping for the re-cataloguing, if it ever actually happens. I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I didn’t want to leave, and then when I tried... I couldn’t.” She put her head in her hands. “The library has been changing so slowly that I barely notice it while it’s happening, but the missing door and the briars were the first things to spring up. And I knew – don’t ask me how, I just _knew_ – that I couldn’t get out, that someone had to find the sword and come for me.”

“The story took over,” Audrey said, half to herself. Louder she asked, “What’s the part of your job that you miss the most?”

“Telling stories.” Caroline’s response was instant. “It’s what I’m best at, making a story come to life.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Duke said. “Do you know what’s been going on since you’ve been trapped in here?”

Caroline’s brow furrowed. “No, how would I?”

Duke ran a hand over his face. “Your stories have been coming to life,” he said.

“Everything you’ve been bottling up is seeping through the cracks,” Audrey continued. Caroline’s eyes got progressively wider as the three of them gave her a quick summary of some of the events of the past weekend. All three of them, Nathan noticed, glossed over the _Sleeping Beauty_ portion of the story.

“I had no idea,” Caroline said. “I thought it was just the library, I really did. Has anyone been hurt?”

“Not that we know of,” Audrey was quick to reassure her.

“Not physically, anyway,” Duke said so quietly that Nathan didn’t think Caroline heard him.

“So you can see why we’re so eager to fix this,” Nathan said. “Especially since this is the third day.”

“Two midnights gone,” Caroline said. “Obviously I want to fix this, but I still have no idea how.”

“I’m starting to have an idea,” Audrey said. “How did we solve all of the other stories? If you can’t cut them off in the first act, you have to see them through to the end. So we just have to figure out how this story ends.”

“Get the sword, storm the tower, rescue the princess,” Duke said. “We already tried that, and it didn’t work.”

“That’s how it would end if this was a story about us,” Audrey countered. “But this story is about Caroline. If anyone’s going to save her, it has to _be_ her.” She cocked an eyebrow at Caroline. “Why is the dragon keeping you here?”

“I already told you, I don’t know!” Caroline’s voice rose briefly as she twisted her skirts in frustration.

“You do,” Audrey insisted. “It’s your dragon. All it’s doing is what it thinks you want. Why doesn’t it want you to leave the library?”

“Because...” Caroline spoke slowly, staring at the floor and searching her own mind. “Because if I leave, it’s afraid I’ll never come back.”

“Good,” Audrey said encouragingly. “Now we’re getting somewhere. You are going to come back, right?”

“Of course I am,” Caroline said. She touched her throat absently. “I know that. It’s just... hard to remember it sometimes.”

Audrey nodded sympathetically. “I know. But you have to believe it. And you have to make the dragon believe it.”

Caroline closed her eyes. She was still and silent for a long time before she took a deep breath and nodded. “I can do that,” she said, standing up. “Can everyone move away from the window, please?”

It was a struggle for her to open the window even a crack, but when she asked the briars to retreat they did. She poked her head out and watched the sky for a while before catching sight of something and giving a little whistle like she was calling a dog.

The heavy thud of wings came near to them again, and a single eye took up the entire window. The dragon made a querulous sound. “No, I’m not going to ask you to let me out again,” Caroline said. “I want you to come in here. We need to talk.” A skeptical sound. Caroline tilted her eyes up, the look of a parent about to break out the big guns. “Do you want to hear a _story_?”

There was an excited chirp, and the briars around the window parted as if cut by the sword. “Stay back,” Caroline warned the other three before stepping aside herself.

The dragon was too big to fit inside the tower. It was _definitely_ too big to fit through the window. But it did, flattening its wings to its sides and diving through it to make a heavy landing at Caroline’s feet. Its tail thumped once as it pressed its nose under her hand like a cat seeking affection. “That’s it,” she said gently, stroking its head. The scratches inflicted by sword and squirrel vanished under her touch.

The dragon purred, but as it tilted its head it caught sight of the other people in the room. The purr turned into a growl, and smoke began rising from its mouth. “Stop that,” Caroline scolded, and it ducked its head guiltily. “They’re not going to hurt you, and you’re not going to hurt them. This has all been a misunderstanding. Now settle down.”

The dragon grumbled, but it sank to the floor, curling around Caroline protectively. “That’s better,” she said, taking a seat on its tail. Her voice had grown stronger, louder and clearer than it had been since they’d arrived. “Once upon a time...”

 

_Once upon a time, there was a princess with a magical voice. When she spoke, she could tame stories and create entire worlds. The princess loved the worlds she created, and people came from miles around to hear her. But one day the princess fell under a terrible curse that stole her voice, and the stories she had tamed were set loose into a world that was unprepared for them. When the princess realized the extent of the curse, she made preparations to go on a quest and find a way to lift it._

_But no one loved her stories quite so much as her companion the dragon, and when it heard of her plans to leave it was afraid she would never come back. And so it trapped her in a tower, thinking to keep her safe from the dangers of the world. And the princess_ was _safe, but not so the rest of the world. With her stories loose the curse could only worsen. She was trapped, unable to help, until the day a brave hero and his companions came to rescue her. They tried to fight the dragon, neither party understanding that they all just wanted to keep the princess safe, and everyone was injured before the princess was able to bring them to a stalemate._

_As it happens, the hero and his companions knew a way to lift the curse from the princess, but they also knew that they would have to take her from her tower in order to do so. This made the dragon afraid again, and angry that its efforts to protect her seemed so unappreciated, but the princess made it a promise: No matter how long it took to lift the curse, or how perilous the journey, she would return to it someday and continue to tell it her stories. She left it a jewel that was part of her heart to seal the promise, and the dragon was content, knowing that she truly would return as long as it held her heart._

 

Caroline stroked the dragon’s muzzle again. “Do you understand now?” she asked it softly. A plaintive sound. “I know,” she said. “But I promise I’m not leaving forever.” She stood and held her hand out to Nathan. “I don’t think you need that sword anymore,” she said. Silent, he lifted it to her.

She took it by the blade, and Nathan gave a startled cry as blood welled between her fingers. “It’s all right,” she said, concentrating on the sword. She spread her arms to cover its entire length, one hand at the hilt and one at the point, and brought her hands together. The sword glowed and went soft, turning into a ball of malleable light that compressed in her hands until it was a dark jewel on a silver chain. The light faded from it, but a faint red glow welled from deep in its heart. She placed the chain around the dragon’s neck with hands that had already healed as if they had never been cut. “Everything’s going to be all right now.”

The dragon made a sad sound, but it closed its eyes and pressed its head up against her hand again. It began to glow the way the sword had, and then it disappeared _into_ her hand. A ripple ran up her arm, and her dragon tattoo flicked its tail once and then went still again. There was a line of silver ink around its neck that hadn’t been there before.

Several sounds happened at once. The briars hissed and groaned, the building creaked, and there was a crackling sound like the one the door lights had made. When Nathan was able to tear his eyes away from Caroline the room was once again the normal children’s library, briar-free windows looking out on the building next door and the library’s main entrance visible through the open wall that had previously been the staircase.

Duke was eyeing the door with great suspicion. “Is that it?” he asked. “‘The End’?”

Caroline gave him a wry look as she quietly retrieved her cardigan from the floor and bundled the sleeping squirrel in it despite a squeak of protest and a struggle as he woke up. She strode to the door with confidence, hesitating only a moment with her free hand on the door handle before pushing it open. The perfectly ordinary daylight outside, unobstructed by thorns, was the most beautiful thing Nathan had seen in a long while.

Caroline shouldered her way out onto the sidewalk, taking a deep breath of fresh air. As the other three joined her she unfolded her cardigan and set it on the ground. “It’s all right, little one,” she said gently to the disoriented squirrel bundled in it. “Go back to your life.” There was a wordless squeak, and the squirrel disappeared without so much as a backward glance. “You know better than to think anything ever _really_ ends,” she said to Duke. “But _this_ story... well, this is as close to ‘happily ever after’ as we’re going to get.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course this isn't the end.
> 
> I want to thank all of you for your patience regarding the delay in this chapter; a whole lotta life hit my beta and myself hard and coincided with the parts that needed the heaviest editing. The final chapter + epilogue should be up within a few days.


	6. After

  
_All stories start somewhere. It is less cut and dried to say that all stories end somewhere. Something’s bound to linger. The thorny roses climbing the library walls weren’t there last week, and resist all attempts to dig them out. A hazel tree grows outside a seaside bar, the only one in the forest. A pile of spun gold hides in a barn meant for sheep and wool. And, more indestructible than plants or gold, memory takes root. What is done to the mind and the heart cannot be undone; the ripples cannot be stilled once set in motion._

_Events end. Stories remain.  
_  
*

Jordan’s hand clenched around her phone, its edges digging into her fingers. She’d been trying to make this call for what felt like hours, the words tumbling through her head in different arrangements and permutations, none of them coming out even close to right. She wasn’t even sure exactly what she was trying to say, only that she needed to say _something._ Something in her head had shifted when she’d driven off the old woman in the woods. She’d hung onto the stag’s neck for a long while afterward, and he had let her take the comfort she needed. It wasn’t even the old woman herself who’d turned Jordan inside out, it was her own reaction.

She had almost allowed herself to be poisoned, just so she could figure out who to trust. It was a chilling revelation of just how much faith she’d lost in the people around her, and in herself. She couldn’t go on like this. She couldn’t keep surrounding herself with people she didn’t trust, even – or perhaps especially – the ones she knew she _should_ trust, and she couldn’t move forward until she found a way to trust herself again. Setting her jaw and squaring her resolve, she dialed.

Voicemail. Thank God. Jordan took a deep breath, tried to put a smile in her voice. “Hi, Nathan, it’s me. I know we were planning to meet up tonight, but I don’t think I’m gonna be able to make it. I...” She swallowed hard. “I don’t think I’m gonna be able to make it for the foreseeable future, actually. There are... some things that happened this weekend, and I... I need some time to myself. I have some thinking to do.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll... I’ll call you. Once I have some things figured out. Take care of yourself, okay?” Another deep breath, let out in a hollow sigh. “Goodbye, Nathan.”

*

_Nathan:_

_I’m sending back the list of incidents that occurred over the weekend, and I’ve marked the ones that I think might have been related to my Trouble, along with the story I think they correspond with. I hope that helps you to make sure that everything has been resolved properly. I had no idea my Trouble was spreading so far, and I am so sorry for the problems that I’ve caused you and the rest of the town. If there’s anything else I can do for you, don’t hesitate to say so._

_As to your other question, I’m not sure if the dream you told me about was part of a story or not. Dreams are a fairly common element in fairy tales, but I don’t know what this one means if there wasn’t anything else obviously connected to it. The closest thing I could find was in the older versions of_ Beauty and the Beast _, where Beauty repeatedly dreams of hearing a voice telling her that there’s a handsome prince trapped somewhere in the Beast’s castle. She searches the castle by day but finds nothing, because of course the prince in question is the Beast, and as she grows to appreciate the Beast’s company the dream stops. It’s not_ exactly _what you told me about, but if you can possibly get some more information from whoever had the dream in the first place I might be able to draw a better connection. Just let me know._

_Caroline Harper_

Nathan frowned at the email. The list of connected incidents from Caroline would be helpful in compiling the “unofficial-official” report, but her information about his dream left him no more enlightened than he had been before. Maybe it had just been a bit of ordinary subconscious babble, dressed up in castles and mysterious voices because that’s what had been on his mind all weekend. He might think about it more later, but for now he put his personal business aside in order to focus on his professional duties to catalog the incident.

According to the official report, the stress of a recent trauma caused a library employee to experience a mild break and barricade herself in the building over the weekend, necessitating police intervention to coax her out of the building. As she had done no harm and was now seeking psychological treatment, the library and the police were considering the matter closed. The _other_ report was going to be much longer. Reverend Driscoll’s attempt at a coup hadn’t dissuaded Nathan from keeping his own records, it had just made him more diligent about hiding them. _Someone_ had to keep records of the Troubles, if only so that the next generation might not blunder through them as blindly as his was, and he didn’t trust Vince and Dave not to take their information to the grave.

“I had the Teagues trace the Harpers,” Audrey said, looking up from the more mundane paperwork on her own desk as if reading his mind. “And the Carsons, Caroline’s mother’s family. There’s no record of anything like this surrounding them, but there _was_ something interesting about the Carson family.”

“Hmm?” Nathan raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Almost half of the mentions of them were in the Entertainment section,” Audrey said with a grin. “Nearly every generation has produced someone active in community theater or local radio. And the articles all use a bunch of adjectives that are polite ways of saying ‘never shuts up.’”

Nathan nodded, understanding beginning to form. “So maybe the compulsion to tell stories is the main part of the Trouble...”

“...and the leakage is just what happens when a Carson can’t,” Audrey finished for him.

“So we need to figure out a way to get Caroline back on her vocal feet before it happens again,” Nathan said.

“Vince had an idea about that,” Audrey told him. “The Haven Herald podcast never panned out, but they still have the recording equipment. If Caroline can tell her stories a little at a time when her voice is up to it, and release them that way, it should be enough of a stopgap to keep them tamed until she can tell them the normal way again.”

It was a good idea, and Nathan wondered how much pressure Audrey had had to put on the brothers before they agreed to it. “What are they saying about this weekend?” he asked. The false memories about the library’s history seemed to have faded from most people’s minds, but _everyone_ in town had seen the dragon.

“There’s going to be a formal apology in this afternoon’s paper from the special effects company that created that incredibly lifelike holographic projection of a dragon,” Audrey said. Nathan couldn’t suppress his incredulous snort. “They were testing out the technology so they could sell it to a theme park. There was supposed to be an announcement before the test so the town wasn’t taken by surprise, but there was a miscommunication and their press team thought the test was scheduled for _next_ week.” She shook her head. “And you know people will believe it.”

“Cling to it, more like,” Nathan said.

Audrey made a sound of agreement. “All this stuff we deal with every day, and so much of this town will believe _anything else_ if it means they get to pretend the Troubles aren’t real.” She sighed. “Do you ever wish that something would happen that would just... drag it all into the open?”

“So that we might have a chance of getting people to work together and fix each other? Maybe find a way to actually end the Troubles instead of slapping a bandage over the wound and telling people not to tell anyone they’re injured? Yeah.” Nathan paused, absently and unfeelingly grinding the point of his pen into the heel of his hand. “But when you think about how big a disaster it would have to be to actually make people believe... The disease is killing us, but we’re not ready for that cure.”

“I know,” Audrey said. “But _something_ has to give.”

_And there’s a chance it’ll have to be you_ , Nathan thought. It was the thing they still weren’t talking about, that deadline that was looming between them. _Twenty-five days_. “We’ll figure this out,” he said. He’d been saying it for so long, and he was going to keep saying it, even if he didn’t know how.

The smile she gave him in return was weak, thin. It had been getting thinner every time he said that. Maybe that was part of the new distance she’d placed between them, a lack of faith that he could protect her the way he was promising to. _I can_ , he promised her silently. _I will._

He seemed to have accidentally ended the conversation, so Nathan gave in and returned his attention to the police reports. He’d laid out all the “little” incidents of the past weekend, and now he sorted them again to reflect the information in Caroline’s email, cross-referencing them in his write-up of what had _really_ happened this weekend.

He should have known that he couldn’t stay away from the subject of Audrey for long. Sandwiched between the talking animals and the old women offering mysterious riddles was a single page detailing a mysterious person seen at the Pace farm. Where _that_ investigation had ended up... well, Nathan had spent too long already trying not to think about it and now he had no choice. Even if he didn’t remember it, just the blackness closing in and then the world rushing back, with nothing in between, there was obviously only one thing that could have awakened him in that particular story. And only one person who could have done it, and only one reason it would have worked. But none of it fit together.

Nathan knew that the idea of Audrey having revealed a secret love for him in that act was a slim hope; she’d made her feelings on that matter clear enough to his own sinking heart lately. More reasonable to think that she’d just been able to wake him because she was the Troubles whisperer, the universal solution to all the town’s problems. Except that that _still_ didn’t track; she’d been locked out of every other story they’d come across. Unless there _was_ still some feeling there, and it was strong enough that she’d been able to simply break the rules of this particular Trouble...

He was going around in circles again. There was no answer here, no matter how hard he searched. He just didn’t know everything that had happened in that moment, what had been in her head and possibly her heart. And he wasn’t going to know, unless he did something incredibly stupid like asking her.

As his dad would have been eager to point out, Nathan had _never_ been smart about Audrey. No point in starting now. “Audrey.”  
From the way she looked up, she’d caught his tone. “What is it, Nathan?” she asked. Too concerned. Too gentle.

Nathan found himself rubbing the side of his hand, running his fingers over the cut the spinning wheel had left. “Tell me what happened on the farm.”

Audrey furrowed her brow at him. “I’m not sure what you’re asking,” she said.

Nathan didn’t miss the phrasing. She wanted to know what he was _asking_ , not what he _meant_. Which suggested that she knew exactly what he wanted to know, but was going to base how much she told him on the way that he asked it. “You kissed me,” he said, watching her face. She gave him a little nod that betrayed nothing, acknowledging that the statement was correct but not adding any context. “And I woke up.”

Now her response was less flat, less certain. “Right,” she said, looking like she was willing him to drop the conversation. True, but not the whole truth?

He pressed on. “The problem is, how does that work?” he asked. “We figured out the rules of this Trouble; the answer has to be the right thing done by the right person. So the story itself would have to recognize you as the right person.” _And to be the right person, you’d have to be in love with me. Are you?_ It was the question he really wanted to ask, but he wasn’t ready to be that direct. “But none of the other stories recognized you at all,” he continued, going for the less imposing question. “So how did that work?”

She couldn’t keep her eyes on him for long. “I knew this was going to happen,” she said cryptically, looking away from him and sinking into her chair. “I said I wouldn’t lie about it.”

“About _what_?”

A sigh. Audrey looked like she was weighing her options, or her words. “I kissed you, and you woke up,” she said. “And you want to know how that worked, given the circumstances. Maybe you should be asking if it _did_ work.”

This didn’t explain anything; all it did was make Nathan more worried about what she was trying to say. He _was_ awake, wasn’t he? This wasn’t some kind of curse-dream that he had yet to wake up from? “ _Did_ it work?” he ventured.

Her smile was so sad. “I wish it had,” she said. “I tried. I’m the Troubles-whisperer; I thought that maybe, even though it wasn’t covered in the story’s rules...” She trailed off. “I would have been the one who saved you if I could.”

So he hadn’t been saved? No, she said she _would have been_ the one if she could. That, he thought, meant that someone else _was_. “So, someone else kissed me, when you...” He didn’t want to say ‘failed.’ “But there wasn’t anyone—”

_Yes there was_.

The sudden realization struck Nathan with almost physical force. There had been someone else, another presence he’d barely registered in his relief at waking up and his joy at seeing Audrey. “ _Duke_?” he managed, his voice high and strained.

The way Audrey was looking at him was a clear ‘yes.’ “I said I wouldn’t lie,” she said. “But I also promised someone I wouldn’t tell you anything.”

Her voice faded out, going distant in the face of this revelation. Fragments of understanding fell on him in a chain, each one leading to the next inevitable conclusion. _Duke_. Duke had been the only other person there. Duke had saved him. Duke had kissed him.

The last domino fell with a crash that echoed. Duke _loved_ him.

It was all too much. Nathan buried his head in his hands, elbows on his desk and his entire body hunched forward. “Wh...” He didn’t even know what the rest of that word would have been. There was nothing in his head, no reasonable thought or coherent response, just a swirling mist of confusion. Duke couldn’t be in love with him. He just couldn’t. It made no sense. Duke was constantly angry at him. He always had an insult ready. He was constantly looking for something new to needle Nathan about.

_He called me in the middle of the night and poured his heart out because he was afraid and needed someone he could trust. He got angry when I tried to put myself in danger to rescue Audrey. He had absolute faith in me when I didn’t think I was who the sword was looking for._ And that was just in the past few days. Now that his mind had latched onto the thread of evidence it was spooling it back along a long line, a million little moments of concern, affection, and admiration weaving in among the fights and fraught silences that had characterized both their lives for so long.

_Seek what you need to seek. Find what you need to find. And know how to recognize it when you do._ The voice from the dream echoed back at him, his subconscious and someone’s Trouble telling him what he maybe should have figured out on his own long ago.

“Are you okay?” The fog finally faded enough, its confusion evaporating in his new understanding, for Audrey’s voice to break through it. He lifted his head to see her leaning on her desk, watching him uncertainly. Trying not to get too close and interrupt whatever was going on in his head, but ready to be at his side in a moment if he needed it.

He wanted to laugh. _Of course I’m not okay; nothing is okay anymore._ The light that had cut through the mist in his head had brought with it a flood, a roiling sea of emotion so turbulent that he couldn’t grasp any individual thread of it. “Did you know?” he finally managed.

Audrey shook her head. “I never suspected. Not until...” She was silent for a moment before giving up the pretense; it wasn’t breaking the spirit of whatever promise she’d made to Duke if she was just saying what Nathan already knew. “Not until he kissed you.”

“Not until he took advantage of the situation,” Nathan said savagely. Anger had bobbed to the surface of the sea like a cork, a too-familiar feeling where Duke was concerned, and he clung to it. _How dare he_.

“Trust me, he wouldn’t have done it if he didn’t think it was his only choice,” Audrey said gently, but Nathan wasn’t listening. It wasn’t actually the kiss itself that the anger was latching onto. _How dare he_ , that voice in his head continued to rail. _How dare he love me. I never asked for that. I never wanted it_.

But then what _did_ he want? The question rose from the depths of his mind, grabbing the anger and dragging it under to mix back in with the rest of the confused tangle of feelings, and there was no answer in sight. To go back to the days when Duke was just a distant memory and not a complicated presence, maybe. But even as he told himself that he felt a stab of pain at the thought, which made him bury his face again. When had Duke become so fundamentally important to him that a life without him in it would be a life with a missing piece?

_Someone who needs me. And someone I might need._

Nathan groaned aloud, squeezing his temples. There was a quiet throb at the edge of his hearing, the sound of what would have been a killer headache if he could feel it. He hadn’t ever imagined that things with Duke could get even _more_ complicated... “What am I supposed to _do_ about this,” he said, not actually asking a question, and not really talking to Audrey, either.

She answered anyway. “You care about him, don’t you? Everything else aside, you care about him?”

“Of course I do.” The words were tired, exasperated. There was no point in trying to pretend otherwise anymore, not to himself or anyone else. Not after everything this Trouble had dragged to the surface for both of them. But it was a hell of a leap from caring about him, a vague idea that was the only certainty that Nathan could unpack from his mess of tangled feelings for Duke, to... well, to what Duke felt for him.

“Then I’m not the person you should be having this conversation with.”

“I shouldn’t be having this conversation at _all_ ,” Nathan said despairingly. This situation shouldn’t be _happening_.

“Right, you should just be pretending nothing ever happened,” Audrey said, a cold edge to her voice. “Because that’s worked out so well for this town so far.” Seeing the wince on Nathan’s face at her sharpness, she softened her voice. “Besides, don’t you think you owe him some honesty?”

“I’ve never lied to him,” Nathan protested. Some of the anger simmered back up. The rest of the situation might be something he didn’t know how to reconcile, but Duke lying to him was familiar territory. Even if this was a far more complicated and confusing lie than any other he’d ever told. “And I don’t owe him anything,” Nathan continued, fresh offense bringing some of the harshness back into his voice. “ _He’s_ the one who chose to save me. He’s the one who... feels something.”

“You’re right,” Audrey agreed. “You’re not obligated to do anything because of how he feels about you.”

Nathan knew her better than to think that was the end of the sentence. “But?”

“But what about how you feel about _him_?” Audrey tilted her head and gave him a probing look. “Caring about him doesn’t mean you have to love him back, but doesn’t it mean you should at least not want him to suffer any more than he has to on your account? Don’t you think you owe it to him as a friend just to let him know where he stands with you?”

Nathan deflated, the fight going out of him. That was the real problem, wasn’t it? “And you think _I_ know where he stands with me?”

Audrey sat back in her chair, the look coming over her face reminding Nathan of the way she looked when she’d just worked out how to reach a Troubled person. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” she said quietly.

Nathan felt like he’d just bitten into a lemon. “What, because I have no idea what I’m doing?”

“More because you know it,” she said, a wry twist to her lip. “Or maybe just because you’re willing to admit it. I could have told you months ago that all three of our lives would be so much easier if you two would just _talk_ to each other.”

“Why didn’t you?” It wasn’t an actual question; Nathan already knew the answer to that one.

“Funny,” Audrey observed, her ironic little smile just inviting enough to elicit a twitch from his own lip. They _both_ knew the answer to that one. “You wouldn’t have listened then, and I’m honestly surprised you’re listening now. I figured you would have shut me down ages ago.”

Nathan let out a puff of air. He was too far out of his depth to shut her down. It wasn’t that he wanted her advice, exactly, even if there was a childish voice in his head shouting that she should be fixing this problem like she fixed every other problem in this town. No, it was more like he’d given up any pretense of being in control of the situation and had just let her take the lead rather than try to swim to shore on his own. “Easier to listen to you than to try to listen to myself right now.”

Audrey climbed out of her chair and came around to his side of the desk, perching on the edge of it and leaning over him. Her hand moved like she was about to rest it on his shoulder, then she stopped herself. Again there was that wall she’d put up between them, and as much as he hated it, at the moment her touch would just be one more thing cluttering up his already mired mind. “I’m betting I don’t want to be in the middle of this any more than you want me here,” she said. “But apparently someone has to be.”

He gave her an ironic look. “We were messing up each other’s lives just fine before you ever got here,” he reminded her.

“And isn’t it a good thing I came along to meddle in that,” she said, matching his tone. Another aborted near-touch, and now he could sense her inching away from him to avoid temptation. “You’re my two favorite people in the world,” she said, the lightness going out of her voice. “And I can see how much you mean to each other, and I don’t want you to lose that. Either of you.”

Again there was that stab of heartache at the thought of losing Duke. Nathan _needed_ Duke in his life, even if he couldn’t piece that feeling together clearly enough to understand it. _Hard not to lose something when you don’t even know what it is._

He didn’t realize he’d said it out loud until Audrey made a sympathetic sound. She breathed in, then let out a sigh. Nathan could tell from her expression that she didn’t think he was going to like what was coming next. “Maybe it’s the wrong question to ask right now, but... what Duke wants, is it even an option as far as you’re concerned?” He furrowed his brow in confusion, and she pressed on. “I’ve got no reason to assume you’re attracted to men at all, but I’ve got no reason to assume you’re _not_ , either. And whether or not you are... well, that’s definitely got some bearing on where this might or might not be going, right?”

Even through the embarrassment that he was sure was turning him scarlet, Nathan almost laughed at how irrelevant the question seemed. It was _Duke_. There was nothing about this situation that could possibly be a bigger or more complicated concern than that. The genders and sexualities involved were barely a footnote to the tangled mess of their relationship. “I’m... open to the possibility,” Nathan finally managed in a mumble when he realized Audrey was still waiting on a response, her head tilted and a ‘go ahead, tell me everything’ expression on her face. “Opportunity’s never really come up.”

An unconcerned nod, Audrey taking this information in stride as she did with everything else in this town. Despite having already assumed that she wouldn’t take issue with his potential bisexuality, Nathan couldn’t suppress a relieved exhale. The relief was short-lived. “And this particular possibility?”

Nathan spread his hands helplessly. What was he supposed to say to that? “I don’t... I mean, I haven’t ever...” This was the first time it had ever even occurred to him to consider Duke in this context. Sure, he had always known Duke was attractive, a handsome man with an easy charm and an enticing roguish streak, and while he’d spent so much of his life jealous of the way women were drawn to Duke he’d always understood _why_ they were. But there was a difference between _knowing_ it and _feeling_ it.

Maybe not as much of a difference as he wanted to tell himself, now that the subject was unavoidable and curiosity was beginning to take hold. He cared about Duke, even liked him sometimes. And he could see Duke’s appeal, with perhaps more clarity every minute that he thought about it, which he was sure was making him turn red again. Was wondering if there might be something else there really that big a leap?

_Stay far away from all that. It’s Duke. Everything he’s said and done and been to you over the years should be proof enough that he’s not worth the risk._

_Go for it. It’s Duke. Everything he’s said and done and been to you over the years should be proof enough that he’s worth the risk._

The two thoughts ran rings around his head until he was dizzy, or maybe it was one thought chasing itself in a circle. Slowly, helplessly, Nathan let his forehead fall to the desk.

Now Audrey finally touched him, a worried hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Finally, a question he could answer. “No,” he said, shaking his head against the table. “I don’t know.” He raised up his head and looked at Audrey despairingly. “It’s...”

“Complicated?” Audrey suggested, not a trace of humor in her smile. “That seems to be the theme.” She shook her head. “You two really are this town,” she said, which Nathan couldn’t understand, but she offered no further explanation. She had the same concerned, frustrated expression she’d worn so often when talking to him about his relationship with his father.

“Audrey...” Nathan started. It was meant to be a firm but friendly warning. It came out as more of a plea.

She sighed, sad and gentle. “Okay,” she said, standing up and returning to her own desk. “I’ll back off. I know I can only push you so far.” She fixed him with a look that was a firm but friendly warning of her own. “But you know you can’t go on like this forever. No matter what you both try to tell yourselves, something has to give.”

*

Other than the sign over the door, the only thing distinguishing the Haven public library from every other building on the street was the spray of roses climbing the walls to about chest height, blooming out of season and giving the squat stone structure an air of inviting mystery. It was a pretty sight, but Audrey still squeezed through the door as quickly as possible, keeping well away from the thorns just in case.

It was funny how strange the inside of the building looked to her now. The flimsy posters should have been heavy wall hangings, the utilitarian circulation desk a mahogany behemoth. She had to stop moving for a moment before the sense of not-quite-déjà-vu settled and she could accept the library for what it was _supposed_ to look like. The other version of it had been strange and stately in its beauty, but she definitely liked the reality better.

Doreen appeared around the corner of a shelf and immediately brightened. “Officer Parker,” she said cheerfully. “To what do we owe the pleasure? Finally coming in to get your card?”

Nathan had certainly spread word about that around to the librarians quickly. There was something endearing about his eagerness to include her in something that was important to him, something that might anchor her here or at least leave behind some proof that Audrey Parker had existed once she was gone. “I’m actually here on business, sort of,” she said. “I hear Caroline’s here today?”

“On your way out, then,” Doreen said, undeterred. She had already rounded the circulation desk and pulled out a form. “Caroline’s in the conference room. I can have this filled out and ready for your signature when you get back, if you like.”

Some proof that Audrey Parker had existed. A piece of cardboard, a signature on a form. Anything that wasn’t just fading away. “Sure, sounds good.”

According to the schedule posted on the door, the conference room was mostly used for scout meetings and evening classes, and was usually empty during the day. Through the window in the door Audrey could see Caroline alone at one end of the big table, wearing headphones and bent over a microphone connected to a laptop. Audrey couldn’t hear what she was saying through the closed door, but she was gesturing animatedly, relaying a story to an absent audience with obvious delight. She didn’t miss a beat as she saw Audrey, smiling and incorporating a nod of acknowledgement and a ‘one second’ gesture into a sweeping arm movement. The story continued to unfold until Caroline apparently reached a stopping point, when she fiddled with something on the laptop and waved Audrey into the room.

“You look like you’re taking to that pretty quickly,” Audrey said. Like the library, Caroline looked different than she had when last they saw each other, but she couldn’t put her finger on how.

“I’m getting the hang of it,” Caroline said in her soft voice, taking the headphones off. “It’s weird, not having the kids right here, but if I pretend they’re there I think I do okay.” A sheepish smile. “And being back in the building – the _real_ one – helps.”

“I bet.” Audrey smiled. “This place is really important to you, isn’t it?”

“Ever since I was a kid. My mom used to bring me here almost every day, and we’d sit in a pile of pillows and read to each other, and make up new stories together.” A wry look. “That makes more sense now. It probably would have prevented a lot of problems if she’d just told me _why_.”

“Communication is not this town’s strong suit,” Audrey said, equally wry. “How does it feel, the whole podcast thing? Is it working?”

Caroline thought for a while before nodding. “I feel... better. Like something that was pressing on me has eased up. Like I can breathe easier, maybe even non-metaphorically. It’s not as good as being back on the job, but... it’s enough, for now. I can deal with this for a while.”

“Good,” Audrey said sincerely, happy both for the town and for Caroline herself. She was clearly feeling much better than she had been when last they saw each other. “I’m looking forward to hearing them, once you start releasing them.”

“Shouldn’t be long once I get the sound editing part figured out. I have almost all of the first episode recorded.” Another sheepish little grin as Caroline tucked a bit of hair behind her ear. “I’m starting with _Rapunzel_.”

_That_ was what was different about her. The hair that had been a curtain hanging almost to her waist when they’d found her was now even shorter than Audrey’s. “You cut your hair.”

“I had to. This is the length it was _before_ this weekend.” A shrug. “Apparently I wasn’t quite immune to my own Trouble, and it decided to leave me something to remember it by.” She shook her head. “Heck of a souvenir, right?”

“Speaking of souvenirs,” Audrey said, remembering the other reason she’d come to see Caroline. She pulled a little packet out of her jacket pocket. “There’s something we wanted you to have.”

“‘We’?” Caroline repeated, taking the paper bundle from her.

“Me, mostly,” Audrey confessed. “But it was Duke’s idea to start with,” she continued as Caroline unrolled the paper to reveal a small glass vial.

Even in the harsh fluorescent light the vial’s contents gleamed, a coil of gold thread throwing back a clear, pure light that made everything it touched look warmer. “Spun by Rumpelstiltskin himself,” Audrey said. “Most of it’s going to get sold off to pay some of the sheep farm’s expenses, but Duke said it would be a shame if none of it stayed with someone who’d know what it really was.”

Caroline’s face darkened. “I can’t take this,” she said, setting the vial down and pushing it towards Audrey. “I made such a mess of things. I can’t just take something beautiful to... I don’t know, commemorate it.”

“Even when it’s something beautiful you helped create?” Audrey asked her. She held up the vial, turning it so that the gold thread caught the light again. “This only exists because of your stories. I’m not gonna lie; you did some damage out there. It’s going to be a long time before the ripples from this disperse entirely. But I don’t think all of them were bad ones.”

*

The problem of living on a boat was that there was always something that needed to be repaired, taking up time and energy you could be devoting to something else. The nice thing about living on a boat was that there was always something that needed to be repaired, taking up time and energy you would otherwise be devoting to things you didn’t want to think about. Given all the things Duke didn’t want to think about lately, the Cape Rouge was in better shape than it had been in a long time. The pump that was currently laid out in pieces on the deck should probably be replaced entirely, but keeping it working was one of his best sources of comforting distraction. Its tendency to quit on him was an obvious problem with an obvious solution, and working on it made him feel like he’d at least accomplished _something_.

Unlike the problem currently trying to sneak up behind him. Duke managed not to tense up at the familiar footsteps, or the way they stopped some distance away. He held out his hand, not turning around. “If you’re going to just stand there, make yourself useful and hand me that wrench.” Metal thumped against his palm. “Thank you.”

No response, which was probably a good thing, given that Duke wasn’t in the mood for conversation. He immersed himself back in his work, tinkering with things that didn’t strictly need to be tinkered with and ignoring the growing knot in his stomach. He could wait this standoff out.

After what felt like hours he finally conceded that he couldn’t. The silence was digging into him, sending claws up and down his back and threatening to turn him inside out. He put his tools down with a sigh and turned around. “What do you want, Nathan?”

Nathan didn’t answer right away. He stood on the deck like he’d never seen it before, subtly drumming his fingers against his thigh and maintaining eye contact with Duke’s left shoulder. “You’ve been avoiding me,” he said finally.

Duke didn’t bother to deny it. He’d worked out that the only solution to his current problem was to stay as far away from Nathan as possible outside of their forced Trouble-hunting interactions until he’d managed to force his love and pain back into their usual box at the back of his mind. The way his heart had jumped into his throat on saying Nathan’s name, he had clearly not succeeded yet. “Consider it a vacation,” he said shortly, turning his attention back to his work.

The footsteps started up again, Nathan bringing himself around to stay in front of Duke. He took a seat on a crate on the opposite side of the deck, staying in Duke’s line of sight and bringing them to about eye level. “Too quiet out there without you.”

It was too _loud_ in here without anyone else, as far as Duke was concerned. He was usually fine with being alone with his thoughts, but not the thoughts he’d been having lately. He grunted, the only reply he could make to that, and Nathan gave up on talking.

No, not gave up. Out of the corner of his eye, Duke saw him shift, repositioning himself into something that would be more comfortable if comfort mattered to him. He folded his hands in front of his face, elbows resting on his knees. Not giving up. Settling in for the long haul.

_Just kick him out_. This was private property, Duke’s home. Without a warrant, Nathan was only there by his leave. If Duke didn’t want him there – and right now he really, _really_ didn’t – he’d have no choice but to go. _But if I tell him to go, he might not come bac_ k. It was a line he couldn’t bring himself to draw yet, though it might become necessary in the future. Let him sit there, then, and get whatever wounded-puppy need for attention he was feeling out of his system, and then maybe they could get back to what passed for normal.

Even when he wasn’t doing anything, Nathan was impossible not to watch. He was _beautiful_ , had been even as the gangly teenager who’d first given Duke butterflies. Duke’s reaction now was more sedate and more pained, but he still couldn’t stop himself from shooting little glances at Nathan every few seconds, trying to keep Nathan from noticing.

For his part, Nathan was still looking in Duke’s direction but not _at_ him, brow furrowed like he was trying to say something. Or trying _not_ to say something. The fingers of his right hand were absently running over the edge of his left hand, brushing against the bandage that covered his spinning wheel wound. “How’s that healing up?” Duke finally couldn’t stop himself from asking, tilting his head towards the bandage.

Nathan turned his hand around and looked at it like he’d forgotten it was injured. “It’s doing okay,” he said. “You?”

“Fine.” Duke’s own bandage was a noticeable lump under the thin undershirt he was wearing, hiding the ugly gash the briars had left across his midsection. The wound had already reached the healing stage where it was starting to itch and pull like hell, but he knew it would have been a lot worse if Nathan hadn’t pulled him back in time. _I saved your ass, you saved mine. We’re even_.

“Good,” Nathan mumbled, not looking at him at all now. He was still studying his bandaged hand, running his fingers over it again like it had reminded him of something. To Duke, who would rather that Nathan just forget the entire incident, this was a bad sign. “Duke...” he started, taking a slow and uncertain breath. “I think we need to talk.”

“Do we,” Duke returned, managing a skeptical look over the sinking feeling in his stomach. He didn’t think he’d ever heard those words from Nathan before. Nathan wasn’t exactly the talking type. He was more the ‘saying nothing for years until something exploded’ type. A departure from that... well, it might be just what both of them needed, truth be told, but it still wasn’t a good sign. “About what?”

“About whatever’s going on here. With us.” The words were clipped, hesitant. His fingers were still moving, just barely, only noticeable because the rest of him was so still. “I don’t... I don’t want...”

This was getting worse. Nathan only lost control of his words like this when he was scared of the weight of saying them. And the only words that scared Nathan were the ones that left him vulnerable. “Maybe you should come back when you know what you _do_ want,” Duke said, just enough venom in his voice to irritate. He was growing even more convinced by the second that he didn’t want to have this conversation.

“I know it was you.” In contrast to the way he’d been speaking, this sentence came out in a rush, Nathan jerking his head up to look Duke in the eye for the first time since he’d stepped onto the boat. Duke could feel himself stop breathing. “In the barn,” Nathan continued. “You—you woke me up. There was—there was nobody else it could have been.”

Panic clawed at Duke’s chest. _No_. This wasn’t happening. This _couldn’t_ happen. The comforting knowledge that Nathan wouldn’t work everything out had been the only thing keeping him from weighing anchor and disappearing into the night, Troubles or no Troubles. And since Nathan _couldn’t_ have figured it out on his own... “ _Audrey_.” Duke breathed her name like a curse.

“She didn’t say anything until I’d already worked it out,” Nathan said, and as much as Duke didn’t want to believe it, he had to. He’d said himself that Nathan wasn’t stupid, but why did he have to choose _now_ to prove it? He was looking at Duke with wide, bewildered eyes, begging for some explanation.

Without his conscious bidding, Duke’s con artist instincts kicked in, hiding his now-pounding heart behind a lazy smile. If a plausible lie was what was needed, then that was what he’d offer. “Didn’t have a lot of choice,” he said, sounding unconcerned. “We needed you for the sword, you needed a kiss...” A shrug. “I took one for the team. Not my ideal course of action, probably not yours either, but what can you do?” Part of that was true, at least. He’d spent so much time over the years wanting to kiss Nathan, but this wasn’t anything like how he’d wanted it to happen.

Nathan still looked blank and confused, but now he was shaking his head like he didn’t believe it. _Come on_ , Duke pled silently, _just go with it_. “That’s not how it works,” Nathan fumbled, dashing Duke’s hopes of getting out of this easily. “You had to... it had to be right. And to be right...” His hands were working more obviously now; he bent his head over them like he was working his way to a conclusion that he must have already come to or he wouldn’t be here. “Duke...” he finally managed, looking up at him with desperation and confusion and... was that _fear_? “Do you...? Are you...?”

It was the look of sheer helplessness that did it. Duke’s last reserve failed, taking with it his panic and seemingly his strength. The calm that came over him was the same feeling that had washed over just before he’d kissed Nathan; a feeling that the fate he’d been trying so hard to defy had finally made itself truly inevitable and there was nothing he could do except ride it out. “Yeah,” he said quietly, bending his head down and directing his words towards the pump, doing everything in his power not to look at their actual audience. “I love you. I’ve been in love with you since high school.” _That’s it, then. Whatever happens next, happens_. He’d always thought, deep down, that it would be a relief to say it out loud. That no matter how Nathan reacted, it would be better than having the weight of what remained unsaid pressing down on his chest and stomach. He’d been wrong. The weight was still there, and now it was a fist clenching around his entire body, just under the skin.

The lack of any reaction went on for far too long. When Duke finally got up the courage to raise his head, Nathan was staring at him, face too pale, eyes widened again with the shock of discovering something he’d already worked out. When he saw that Duke was looking at him again, he seemed to regain a little bit of his composure if only to save face. “I didn’t... I didn’t know,” he finally croaked out.

_You weren’t meant to_ , Duke didn’t say out loud. This reaction was nothing like what he had expected, even if he hadn’t know what to expect. There should have been shouting, indignation, maybe even a punch thrown. Nathan didn’t react well to having his world turned inside out. At best, he’d hoped for an over-rehearsed apology, the old ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t feel the same way.’ This helpless shock, like he’d hit Nathan so hard he didn’t know how to bounce back, was outside of anything he’d expected to see. “Now you do,” he said simply, quiet around the tightness of his throat. He forced the lump down with practice. “And now you can forget it,” he added, louder and colder, “and we can go back to our lives.”

That brought Nathan up short. “I’m not going to _forget_ ,” he said, sounding appalled. Insulted, even. “You can’t just tell me something like that and expect me to forget it like nothing happened!”

Anger. Finally, they were back on familiar ground. Fury bubbled up in Duke’s own chest to meet it, breaking him loose of the weight of old pain and sadness as he finally got as mad as he’d always wanted to be at how unfair all of this was. “Of course not,” he growled, rising to his feet. “Because that would leave me with _one thing_ in my life that you’re not constantly hounding me about. One secret that doesn’t lead to you accusing me of trying to ruin your life because of something I don’t have any control over.” He ground his teeth, his voice rising almost to the breaking point. “Do you think I _want_ this? You think I’m _okay_ with being in love with someone who hates me?”

“I don’t hate you!” Nathan shot up and took a couple short steps towards Duke, not quite closing the distance between them. His words echoed in Duke’s head, the same words Duke had tried so hard to get him to say when he was dying, now roared in his face with more force and violence than anyone in history had probably poured into saying that they _didn’t_ hate someone. “You piss me off _so much_ ,” Nathan continued, more quietly now that he’d gotten the initial outburst, but still practically crackling with vehemence. “But do you really think I’d get half as mad as I do if I didn’t—if you didn’t mean the _world_ to me?” He buried his face in one hand again, catching his breath in Duke’s stunned silence. “Why didn’t you ever _tell_ me?”

Irrelevantly, Duke reflected that he didn’t really have the right any longer to claim that _Nathan_ didn’t react well to having his world turned inside out. He wasn’t sure exactly how Nathan had managed to flip everything around on him, leaving _him_ the one confused and helpless and not sure what was going on. “Would it have made a difference?”

“It would have been a start.” Nathan’s voice had gone small now, stumbling over his words again. “We’ve been fighting for so long, and you’ve been carrying that around all this time... If I’d known...” He let out a short huff and looked away, like he was steeling himself for something. “It’s not _all_ your fault that we’re so screwed up,” he finally said, looking back at Duke. “And maybe if I’d known what was going on in your head, I wouldn’t have done as much as I did to make things worse. We could have been... better.”

This confession was more shocking than anything Nathan had ever said. It hadn’t been an apology, and as far as Duke could tell it was as gentle a rejection as Nathan could manage, but it was still... well, like he’d said. It might be a start, if only to some of the old pain lifting. “Maybe,” Duke said quietly. He forced a rueful smile, and found it didn’t take all that much force. “In another life, right?”

Nathan took a deep breath. “Or maybe this one?” There was a tremor in the words, and he was looking more nervous than Duke had ever seen him before. “Maybe, if I’d known what you were...” He faltered, seemingly running out of words. Duke, similarly lost, did nothing to interrupt as Nathan tried again. “It never... I never thought to look at you like that,” he said, sounding surprised at himself. “And now I have, and I’m looking and... I don’t want to look away.” Something in his face softened as he said that, the barest hint of wonder in his eyes. Like he’d discovered something new. He shook his head helplessly. “Maybe it’s not what you’re feeling. But I want to find out if it _could_ be.”

Hope burned in Duke’s chest, beautiful and terrible because this couldn’t _possibly_ be going where he wanted to think it was. And yet... “I... have no idea what to say to that,” he said quietly, not wanting to ask the question that he wanted to ask.

He hadn’t thought Nathan could get any closer without it being way too close. Nathan seemed to disagree. His voice was practically a whisper. “So for once in your life, don’t _say_ anything.”

Coming from anyone else, Duke would have known immediately what that meant. But coming from _Nathan_... that fear in his eyes was contagious. So was the sudden softness of his voice, as Duke discovered when he tried to respond. “Was that... a ‘shut up and kiss me’?”

A grin, nervous and fumbling but with clear intent. “It was trying to be.”

_Oh_. Not much room for interpretation. But plenty of room for hesitation, as it turned out. Duke rested a hand on Nathan’s chest, mostly to steady himself, and got as far as leaning in before he froze up completely. Nathan was apparently in no bolder shape than he was, willing to ask someone else to make the first move but not brave enough to make it himself. Then there was a new curl to his lip and a low growl: “For god’s sake, Duke, don’t you _dare_ chicken out on this one.”

It shouldn’t have worked. Duke liked to think he had far too much pride and dignity for something like that to work. And yet suddenly he was kissing Nathan, _really_ kissing him this time, and Nathan was kissing him back. It was cautious, and about as awkward and uncertain as could be expected from someone who couldn’t actually feel what he was doing, but it was _real_ , and it was happening, and there wasn’t room in Duke’s brain for much else.

Eventually Nathan broke away, leaning back just enough to take a good look at Duke. He brushed an errant bit of hair out of Duke’s face, then left his hand there, resting lightly on Duke’s cheek. “Keep your eyes open this time,” he murmured. Duke barely had time to nod his acknowledgement before Nathan kissed him again, and then there was nothing else in the universe but the deep, perfect blue of his eyes. There was still awkwardness to his touch, but the caution had evaporated entirely.

This time Duke was the one who had to pull back, to catch his breath and rein in his reeling head. “Okay,” Nathan said quietly, sounding almost as dazed as he felt. “Gotta admit, that was a little bit magical.”

It was the worst thing he could possibly have said, or maybe the best. As Nathan started to lean in for a third kiss – _magic always comes in threes_ – Duke took a step back, the hand still resting on Nathan’s chest becoming a barrier. “I think you need to leave for now,” he forced himself to say, ignoring the thousand little voices in his head screaming that he was making the biggest mistake of his life.

Watching the new light fall out of Nathan’s face was painful. “I thought—”

“I know,” Duke said quickly. “And I can’t _believe_ I’m saying this. But this...” He laughed helplessly at himself. “This is everything I could possibly want. If it’s real.”

Nathan looked as confused as he had at the beginning of this conversation, though now the helplessness was replaced with hurt. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that there’s a Trouble that locked us in a story that we had to see through to the end,” Duke said. “And what if it’s still hanging around? There’s fairy tale residue all over town, from the gold at the farm to the new tree outside the Gull. What if _this_ is only happening because it’s supposed to be how the story ends? I know,” he continued, cutting off the objection that he could see Nathan forming, “you’re going to say that you know how you feel, and no Trouble could have caused it, right? But a Trouble made you believe in dragons and magic swords. I know, because it did the same thing to me. Can you really be sure it didn’t do this to you, too?”

“Yes,” Nathan said quickly, but his voice lacked conviction. “No,” he confessed.

Duke nodded, aching with regret. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You have a girlfriend,” he said, trying not to notice the strange way Nathan’s face twisted when he said that. “Not to mention that you’re still hung up on a woman who’s one of my best friends. I just... I don’t want either of us to regret anything if this all wears off.”

“So, what?” Nathan asked, his voice going flat. “We do what you said earlier? Just forget any of this ever happened?”

Duke smiled ruefully. “Do you really think I _could_?” He shook his head. “Just take some time, is all I’m saying. Clear your head. Talk to whoever you need to talk to. And in a couple days, if you still... well, you know where to find me.”

“And if I don’t?” Nathan asked. The sadness in his voice reminded Duke of his own, the regret of time wasted and chances that the two of them should have taken years ago.

“Then you still know where to find me.” Duke forced a shrug at Nathan’s doubtful expression. “Hey, at least I’ll finally know, right? We can start clean either way. And even if we can’t be something else, maybe we can remember how to be friends again.”


	7. Epilogue: Once Upon a Time

_The Grey Gull is usually quiet this time of day, when the afternoon rush has mostly trickled out and the evening rush hasn’t started trickling in. The public parking lot is almost empty, and Nathan is able to pull his truck right up to the door. There’s a sense of déjà vu to it, especially when he sees a dark-haired head rise in the window. Nathan takes a deep breath, bracing himself. He’s pretty sure his stomach is doing flips, even if he can’t feel it. Slowly, hesitantly, he opens the door and climbs out of the truck._

_He’s not the only one being cautious. Duke pauses by the bar for too long on his way to the door, and there’s another pause when he’s standing behind it. Eventually, though, the door opens, and there’s Duke looking out at him with a smile that’s probably only partially faked. Probably._

_They’ve stood like this on too many occasions, Duke holding a door open and Nathan standing outside it, not knowing what to do next. He’s walked away so many times, and yet the door keeps opening. He’s only just beginning to realize what that means, and how lost he would have been if he’d ever arrived to find the door closed._

_Something in that fake smile softens, turns more real as Nathan approaches. It’s still guarded, though; Duke knows as well as Nathan the way this usually goes. But not today. Blood rushing in his ears, Nathan marches himself straight up to the door, gives Duke a gentle nod, and very firmly and deliberately steps inside. “Hi,” he says in a murmur that seems to echo off the rafters._

_“Hi,” Duke repeats, not much louder. His face is a swirl of worry and cautious hope, and it’s clear he’s not going to say anything more until Nathan does._

_He has an amazing face. Nathan doesn’t want to look away from it. But he has to, so that he doesn’t fumble too terribly when he reaches out and takes Duke’s free hand in his. “Is there... somewhere we can talk?”_

_The way Duke smiles then is soft and clear and all-enveloping, the spring sun that melts the last of the winter snow. “They can manage without me for a while,” he says, and tilts his head towards the tree line, and the one tree that doesn’t quite match the rest of the woods. He lets go of Nathan’s hand as he follows him outside, but a moment later Nathan recognizes the rustle of cloth that means there’s an arm around his back, a hand resting on his opposite shoulder. They’re silent as they approach the trees, a place where they can speak freely without the fear of anyone overhearing except the squirrels, and they’re no longer able to tell anyone else. Nathan doesn’t actually know what he’s going to say when they get there, but he thinks he’ll start with “It wasn’t just the Trouble” and see where they go from there._

_It’s not a happy ending. But it might be the start of something.  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a wild ride it's been! A thousand thanks to my beta, and to all my readers. I hope you've loved reading this as much as I loved writing it.


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